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MY  PILGRIMAGE  TO  THE  WISE  MEN 
OF  THE  EAST 


MY  PILGRIMAGE  TO 
THE  WISE  MEN  OF  THE  EAST 


BY 


MONCURE   DANIEL  CONWAY 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

tttocrsi&e  prc^tf,  Cambridge 
1906 


COPYRIGHT  1906  BY  MONCURE  DANIEL  CONWAY 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  October  1906 


IDS' 
-f/3 

C 


CONTENTS 

Prolegomena 1-13 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Cult  of  Patriotism  —  Robert  G.  Ingersoll  —  A  black  mark  on  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  —  Pilgrimages  to  Virginia  —  The  ori- 
ginal aborigines  —  The  first  church  in  North  America  —  Cruelties 
of  colonization  —  Christmas  reunions  of  revolutionary  veterans  — 
A  Song  of  Seventy-six — Mary  Washington — Seamy  side  of  the 
Revolution 15-36 

CHAPTER  II 

A  witch  hunt  at  Washington  —  Yellow  Springs,  Ohio  —  Cincinnati  — 
Judge  Hoadly  —  Journey  to  Salt  Lake  City  —  John  W.  Young  — 
Mormonism  and  human  nature  —  Elder  Penrose  as  a  preacher  — 
Mormon  wives  and  Mormon  husbands  —  The  fate  of  repudiated 
wives  ............  37-46 

CHAPTER  III 

San  Francisco — Red  Cross  Knights  —  Chinese  Joss  and  theatre  —  Voy- 
aging southward  —  Flying  fish  and  sunfish  —  Delia  Bacon  —  Shake- 
speare-Baconism  —  Honolulu  Sabbath  —  Captain  Cook  —  Legends 

—  Pele-Jehovah  —  Rev.   Titus    Coan  —  Samoans  —  Phenomena  — 
New  Zealand  —  Dr.  Richard  Garnett  —  Pearl-divers  —  Our  floating 
Utopia 47-69 

CHAPTER  IV 

The  Melbourne  Cup  —  Joss  House  —  Sects  in  Victoria  —  Governor  of 
Victoria — Bishop  of  Melbourne  —  Rev.  Charles  Strong  —  Austra- 
lian insanity  —  Ballarat  gold  mines  —  Hon.  Peter  Lalor  —  Hon.  A. 
Inglis  Chirk  —  Hobart  —  Campbellites  —  Nature's  oddities  —  Relics 
of  transportation  times  —  Extinction  of  Tasmanians  —  My  ordeal  in 
Sydney  —  Impaled  with  Bishop  Moorhouse  and  Rev.  Charles  Strong 

—  Fusion  of  Freethought  and  Spiritualism  —  The  Botany  Bay  myth 

—  Justice  Windeyer 70-96 


809956 


vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  V 

Colonial  Chauvinism  —  King  George's  Sound  —  Weird  coast  names  — 
Australian  aborigines  —  An  uncivilizable  maiden  —  Dangers  of  fed- 
eration —  Krakatoan  lava  —  Voltaire  and  Wesley  on  the  Lisbon 
earthquake 97-107 

CHAPTER  VI 

Ceylon  —  Plain  living  and  high  thinking  —  Talks  with  the  Buddhist 
Perera  —  Origin  of  Whittington's  cat  —  "  Rodyas  "  —  A  Sinhalese 
law  court  —  Judge  Arunachalam  and  his  wife  at  Kattura  —  A  ram- 
ble with  Sinhalese  gentlemen  —  My  Buddhist  plea  for  a  suffering 
snake  —  Hindu  shrines  in  Buddhist  temples  —  The  learned  priest 
Subhuti —  Sinhalese  homes  —  A  Moslem  on  Heber's  verse  about 
Ceylon  —  Temple  at  Khandy  —  A  Moslem  sermon  —  Kellania  — 
Buddhist  folk-tales  —  "  Merits  "  —  Nirvana  —  My  Christmas  lec- 
ture at  Colombo  —  High  priest  of  Adam's  Peak  —  Conferences  with 
Buddhists  in  their  college  —  An  unpublished  Pitaka  —  ' '  Covetous- 
ness  "  —  Of  actions  at  once  right  and  sinful  —  The  extinct  erder  of 
female  priests  —  English  masqueraders  —  Bishop  Mcllvaine  and 
Bishop  Temple 108-142 

CHAPTER   VII 

New  Year's  eve  in  Cinnamon  Gardens  —  Hon.  P.  Ramanathan's  ban- 
quet —  Devil-dances  —  Sinhalese  demonology  —  Entertainment  in 
the  palace  of  Mutu  Kumara  Swamy  —  The  Nautch  dancers  —  "  The 
Martyr  of  Truth  "  (Harischandra)  —  Wagnerite  music  .  143-161 

CHAPTER  VTH 

Arabi  in  Exile  —  Relations  between  Egyptians  and  English  in  Colombo 

—  Arabi 's  Mohammedan  Christianity  —  Adam's  Peak  and  Ararat  — 
How  Arabi's  life  was  saved  —  The  English  defenders  of  Arabi  — 
Arabi 's  situation  at  seventy  —  Conjurers — The  giant    turtle   of 
Colombo  —  The  heart  and  life  of  Buddhism  in  Ceylon         .         162-173 

CHAPTER  IX 

Madras  —  Temple  dancers  —  Talk  with  students  —  Juggenauth  —  St. 
Thome*  —  A  Portuguese  Thomas  —  Legend  of  Savatri  —  New  Dis- 
coveries concerning  Thomas  —  Pain  and  piety  —  A  Jain  parable 

—  Good  will  to  man  —  A  Buddhist  carol  .        174-194 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  X 

Adyar  —  Mme.  Blavatsky  and  her  confession  —  The  Theosophists  — 
An  American  receiving  the  Buddhist  pansala  —  The  attempted 
fraud  on  the  Broughtons  —  Letter  of  Commissioner  Broughton  — 

—  Origin  of  Koothoomi  —  Revelations  of  Mme.  Coulomb    .        195-214 

CHAPTER  XI 

Calcutta  —  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  his  death  —  Jogendra  Chandra 
Ghosh  and  Positivism  —  Mozoomdar  and  Dr.  Tyndall  —  Exposition 

—  Holy  pictures  —  Miracle  plays  and  Hindu  theatres  —  Kalighat 
festival  —  Sir  William  Hunter  —  A  learned  fakir  —  Kali  —  Salva- 
tion Army  —  Entertainment  by  Prihce  Furrok  Shah  —  Christian 
errors  about  "  idols  "  —  A  dream  interview  with  Kali         .        215-247 

CHAPTER  XII 

Exploring  Bengal  —  A  conference  of  religions  —  Moslem  Christianity 

—  Dr.  Rajendralala  Mitra  on  Christian  polytheism  —  Hon.  Syed 
Ameer  Ali  —  Dr.  Ananda  Cumara  Swamy  —  The  marvellous  dolls 

—  Maharajah  Sir  Jotendra  Mohun  Tajore  —  The  demonized  Buddha 

—  Buddha-Gaya  —  Root  of  Buddha's  Bo-tree  —  Letter  from  Dr. 
Mitra  —  Buddhist-Hindn-philosophy  —  Benares  —  Monkey  Temple 

—  Deer  Park  and  legend  of  the  Mango  Girl  —  "  The  Toy-Cart  "  — 
Our  Western  Buddha    ........        248-276 


CHAPTER 
Delhi  palaces  —  Pillar  of  Asoka  —  The  Minar  Pillar  —  Purana  Keela 

—  The  Taj  at  Agra  —  Akbar  —  The  Parliament  of  Religions  — 
Oriental  ethics  —  The  Jehanara  mosque       ....         277-301 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Allahabad  —  Manwaysh  festival  —  Ganges  immersions  —  A  Chris- 
tian-Brahman debate  —  Relic  of  cobra-  worship  —  River  deities  — 
Christian  and  Brahman  doctrines  of  sacrifice  .  .  .  302-316 

CHAPTER  XV 

Bombay  —  Alexander  Agassiz  —  Missionaries  —  England  in  India  — 
"  The  Old  Missionary  "  —  Nelacantah  Goreh  —  Professor  Peterson 

—  Hindu  hymn  —  A  drive  with  Judge  West  —  Shankuran  Pandit 

—  The  Towers   of  Silence  —  Zoroastrianism  —  The  zenana  —  Ra- 
mabai  —  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  his  monument  —  Bhakti  (faith) 


viii  CONTENTS 

—  Indian  sects  —  Faults  of  English  colonists  — Samuel  Laing,  M.  P., 

"  A  Modern  Zoroastrian  "  —  The  ideal  Jain  temple     .         .        317-342 

CHAPTER  XVI 

II  ome ward  —  The  Flying  Dutchman  —  Our  '  Lady  of  the  Peking ' 

—  A  letter  of  John  Bright  —  "  Chinese  Gordon  "  in  the  Soudan  and 
in  Palestine  —  Pilgrimage  to  the  Krupp  Gun  Works  at  Essen,  Ger- 
many —  Address  at  Dickinson  College,  Pennsylvania  .        .        343-350 

CHAPTER  XVTI 
Seeking  the  Beloved 351-381 

CHAPTER  XVHI 
Addenda  1905, 1906 382-409 

Index 411 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


MONCURE  D.  CONWAY  (photogravure)      .        .        .        Frontispiece 

LETTER  OF  R.  G.  INGEKSOLL 22 

WASKADUWB  SUBHCTI,  A  LEARNED  BUDDHIST  AUTHOR       .       .118 

A  BUDDHIST  TEMPLE 120 

KHANDY  TEMPLE 122 

SUMANGALA,  PRIEST   OF  ADAM'S   PEAK 130 

BUDDHIST  PRIESTS  OF  CEYLON 132 

HON.  P.  RAMANATHAN,  SOLICITOR-GENERAL  OF  CEYLON          .  134 

DEVIL-DANCERS 144 

ACHMET  ARABI,  "THE  EGYPTIAN" 162 

VIRCHAND  R.  GANDHI,   THE  CHIEF  RELIGIOUS  LEADER  AMONG 

THE  JAINS  OF  INDIA 190 

THE  JAIN  SYMBOLICAL  PICTURE 192 

MADAME  BLAVATSKY 196 

KESHUB  CHUNDER  SEN 216 

HON.  SYED  AMEER  ALI 252 

STUPA 264 

CASTLE  OF  THE  PANDA VAS 282 

PUNDITA  RAMABAI 332 

SAMUEL  LAING,  M.  P.,  AUTHOR  OF  "  A  MODERN  ZOROASTRIAN  "  340 

LETTER  OF  JOHN  BRIGHT 346 

SIR  WILLIAM  W.  HUNTER    .  404 


MY   PILGRIMAGE   TO  THE   WISE 
MEN   OF   THE   EAST 

PROLEGOMENA 

AMID  the  fantastic  Apocryphal  fables  one  poetic  tale 
has  found  its  way  into  the  Arabic  Gospel  of  the 
Infancy. 

"  And  it  came  to  pass  when  Jesus  the  Lord  was  born 
at  Bethlehem  of  Judah,  in  the  time  of  Herod  the  King, 
behold  Wise  Men  came  from  the  East  to  Jerusalem,  as 
Zoroaster  had  predicted :  and  they  had  with  them  gifts, 
gold,  incense,  and  myrrh ;  and  they  worshipped  him  and 
offered  unto  him  their  gifts.  Then  lady  Mary  took  one 
of  his  swaddling  bands  and  gave  it  to  them  as  a  little 
reward,  and  they  received  it  from  her  with  great  honour. 
And  the  same  hour  there  appeared  unto  them  an  angel  in 
the  form  of  the  star  which  had  been  the  guide  of  their  way 
before ;  and  following  the  leading  of  its  light  they  departed 
into  their  own  country. 

"  And  there  the  kings  and  their  princes  came  to  them 
asking  what  they  had  seen  or  done,  how  they  had  gone 
and  returned,  what  they  had  brought  with  them.  And 
they  showed  them  the  swaddling  band  which  lady  Mary 
had  given  them ;  wherefore  they  celebrated  a  festival,  and 
kindled  fire  according  to  their  custom  and  worshipped  it, 
and  cast  the  swaddling  band  into  it,  and  the  fire  seized  it 
and  absorbed  it  into  itself.  But  when  the  fire  went  out, 
they  drew  forth  the  swaddling  band  just  as  it  was  at  first, 
as  if  the  fire  had  not  touched  it.  Therefore  they  began  to 


2  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

kiss  it,  and  to  place  it  on  their  heads  and  eyes,  saying, 
Verily  this  is  undoubted  truth  ;  it  is  indeed  a  great  thing 
that  the  fire  could  not  burn  nor  destroy  it.  They  took  it 
thence  and  with  the  greatest  honour  deposited  it  among 
their  treasures." 

It  is  evident  from  the  context  that  this  little  tale  has 
been  inserted  from  some  foreign  source.  The  next  sen- 
tence begins,  "  Now  when  Herod  saw  that  the  Wise  Men 
had  departed  and  not  returned  to  him,"  but  nothing  is 
said  of  their  having  seen  Herod  at  all.  Their  star-angel 
is  Zoroaster  himself,  who  shines  through  this  legend  of 
primitive  pilgrims  from  Persia  treasuring  even  the  small- 
est new  truth  which  their  flame  could  absorb  but  not  con- 
sume. 

I  have  dreamed  of  missionaries  travelling  to  the  East 
as  if  returning  this  visit  of  the  Wise  Men  :  they  say, 
"  Show  us,  O  elder  brothers,  the  swaddling  band  your 
fire  could  not  consume,  that  we  may  press  it  to  our  eyes 
and  lips ;  for  the  bands  borne  west  are  consumed !  " 

It  was  in  studying  the  Oriental  books  in  my  youth  that 
I  learned  that  in  all  the  earth  were  growing  the  flowers 
and  fruits  of  the  human  heart,  concerning  which  one  Wise 
Man  said,  "  Keep  thy  heart  above  all  that  thou  guardest; 
for  out  of  it  are  the  issues  of  life." 

On  May  1,  1859,  I  preached  in  Cincinnati  a  discourse 
on  "  East  and  West,"  my  text  being,  "  The  night  is  far 
spent,  the  day  is  at  hand  ;  let  us  therefore  cast  off  the 
works  of  darkness,  and  let  us  put  on  the  armor  of  light." 
It  was  at  the  first  assembling  of  the  congregation  after 
nearly  half  of  them  had  left  us  to  found  a  new  Unitarian 
society,  "The  Church  of  the  Redeemer."  Along  with 
my  personal  distress  at  parting  with  so  many  friends  who 
could  not  follow  me  in  my  repudiation  of  Supernatural- 


PROLEGOMENA  3 

ism,  I  still  felt  a  sort  of  relief  in  having  no  further  need 
for  compromise  with  the  Past.  All  the  rationalists  of  the 
city  had  crowded  to  my  side ;  and  in  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
crisis  I  said  :  — 

"The  sun  of  civilization  rose  in  the  East,  and  ever 
journeys  Westward.  And  it  is  not  a  fancy,  but  a  fact, 
that  Humanity,  as  much  as  the  earth,  is  divided  into  night 
and  day  —  historically,  East  and  West.  What  is  the  dif- 
ference of  night  and  day  ?  One  is  the  time  for  dreams, 
the  other  for  realities ;  one  has  visions,  the  other  actual- 
ities. Let  us  not  undervalue  the  Night  out  of  which  our 
race  has  emerged ;  it  was  a  healthful  and  beautiful  slum- 
ber which  it  found  there,  and  by  which  it  was  made 
strong  for  the  day  of  toil  which  awaited  it.  Sciolists 
speak  of  the  '  dark  ages,'  as  if  darkness  were  the  sole 
characteristic  of  those  times.  I  tell  you  glorious  stars 
shone,  and  splendid  worlds  rolled  on  their  orbits  of  fight, 
in  that  primal  darkness.  It  was  a  time  of  dreams,  indeed, 
but  they  were  dreams  which  the  Earth  exists  and  toils  to 
carve  into  reality.  It  was  the  mission  of  that  Oriental 
world  to  dream,  and  it  f ulfilled  its  mission  grandly :  it 
dreamed  out  an  Eden,  a  Golden  Age ;  it  caught  the  per- 
fect vision  which  is  bequeathed  to  our  Day  under  the 
name  of  Christianity.  We  may  safely  judge  this  child- 
hood of  the  world  by  the  phenomena  of  our  own  indi- 
vidual childhood;  you  know  that  in  our  childhood  we 
are  not  practical,  but  build  air  castles,  yet  a  true  man- 
hood will  follow  youth's  visions.  So  the  Orient  achieved 
no  great  practical  works ;  its  Edens  and  Ages  of  Gold 
fade  into  poems  under  the  analysis  of  history.  These 
grandeurs  were  the  rearing  of  that  skilful  architect,  Im- 
agination, out  of  very  insignificant  materials.  But  there 
came  a  time  of  waning.  Visions  and  speculations  grew 


4  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

fainter  and  fainter ;  the  moon  and  the  stars  were  paling 
in  the  sky.  No  prophet  could  add  another  tint  to  the  lunar 
rainbow,  which  hovered  with  mystic  light  over  the  young 
world,  but  could  only  tell  of  golden  treasures  which  the 
future  was  to  find  at  the  rainbow's  end.  The  East  had 
given  its  message  to  the  world,  and  must  retire." 

The  doctrinaire  provincialism  of  that  discourse  is  ex- 
cusable in  part  by  my  youth,  which  was  disproportionate 
to  my  twenty-seven  years,  but  still  more  by  the  exaltation 
in  which  American  reformers  were  all  living  before  War 
came  to  show  that  our  idealized  New  World  was  to  repeat 
and  intensify  the  brutal  regime  of  Europe.  After  the 
terrible  decade  I  published  (1870)  "  The  Earthward  Pil- 
grimage." I  allowed  the  work  to  go  out  of  print,  when  it 
was  having  a  fair  sale,  because  some  of  its  statements 
no  longer  satisfied  me.  At  the  request  of  the  Rationalist 
Press  Association  in  London  I  recently  revised  the  vol- 
ume to  find  if  the  publication  might  not  be  made  with 
supplementary  notes,  but  conclude  that  the  task  is  im- 
possible. 

In  reporting  "  how  I  left  the  world  to  come  for  that 
which  is,"  my  criticisms  on  the  abandoned  dogmas  and 
delusions  do  not  seem  unfair,  but  the  world  into  which  I 
entreated  people  to  follow  me  is  not  "  that  which  is,"  but 
a  mirage  of  the  "  Celestial  City  "  thrown  by  Transcen- 
dentalism on  the  horizon  of  the  world.  Millennial  dreams 
survive  in  my  necessitarian  "  progress,"  my  deity  is  still 
dynamic  and  external,  the  "  collectivist  "  superstition  of 
some  divinity  in  masses  of  men  lingers ;  and,  worst  of  all, 
there  pervades  the  book  the  fatal  fallacy  that  evil  is  good 
in  the  making. 

There  are  indeed  many  pages  which  in  an  empirical 
way,  or  by  implication,  are  inconsistent  with  the  errors,  as 


PROLEGOMENA  5 

I  now  deem  them ;  and  I  am  reminded  by  the  first  chap- 
ter of  "  The  Earthward  Pilgrimage  "  of  my  consciousness 
of  being  far  from  any  shrine  in  the  direction  I  was  travel- 
ling. "  There  came  to  me  one  who  spoke  with  a  voice  not 
to  be  disobeyed.  He  laid  on  me  a  burden,  and  gave  me 
a  shield  called  Truth,  and  said :  '  Henceforth  thou  shalt 
be  a  pilgrim.  From  a  world  believing  in  the  incredible, 
adoring  where  it  should  abhor,  thou  shalt  depart  never 
to  return.  Whither,  shall  be  opened  to  thee  as  thou  shalt 
journey ;  whence,  is  already  plain.' '  The  concluding 
pages  of  that  first  chapter,  written  on  the  threshold  of  my 
new  world,  may  fairly  preface  the  present  work,  originally 
prepared  as  a  part  of  my  Autobiography :  — 

"  The  Interpreter  lit  his  candle  and  said :  '  Do  you 
remember  the  picture  I  formerly  showed  you,  in  a  private 
room,  of  a  very  grave  person  ? '  'I  do,  indeed,'  I  said ; 
*  and  this  was  the  fashion  of  it ;  it  had  eyes  lifted  up  to 
heaven,  the  best  of  books  in  its  hand,  the  law  of  truth 
was  written  upon  its  lips,  the  world  was  behind  its  back, 
it  stood  as  if  it  pleaded  with  men,  and  a  crown  of  gold 
did  hang  over  its  head.'  *  That  picture,'  he  said,  *  gradu- 
ally became  so  dingy,  that  once,  when  an  old  artist  came 
hither,  I  accepted  his  offer  to  clean  and  retouch  it ;  you 
shall  see  it  as  he  left  it.'  On  entering  the  well-known 
room,  I  saw  that  the  portrait  had  been  changed  in  several 
particulars.  The  grave  person's  eyes  now  looked  down- 
ward ;  the  book,  partially  closed,  was  placed  on  one  side ; 
and  the  world,  which  had  been  behind,  was  now  immedi- 
ately under  his  eyes,  and  covered  with  inscriptions ;  the 
crown  of  gold  suspended  over  his  head  had  changed  to 
luminous  dust.  When  I  asked  the  meaning  of  this  change, 
the  Interpreter  said :  '  I  will  show  you  a  new  scene  com- 
manded by  this  house,  which  will  unfold  the  significance 


6  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

of  the  picture.'  Thereupon,  he  took  me  to  the  top  of  the 
house,  from  which  could  be  seen  the  two  rival  cities.  What 
was  my  surprise  to  see  a  dark  cloud  gathered  over  the 
City  of  Otherworldliness,  with  lightnings  flashing  from  it, 
while  over  the  so-called  City  of  Destruction  shone  a  beau- 
tiful rainbow  !  '  Thus,'  said  the  Interpreter,  '  that  which 
exalteth  itself  must  be  abased,  and  that  which  huinbleth 
itself  shall  be  exalted.  The  city  which,  from  being  the 
domain  of  the  lowly  friend  of  man,  the  carpenter's  son, 
has  been  given  over  to  those  who  care  more  for  bishoprics 
and  fine  livings  than  for  mankind,  has  become  the  City  of 
Destruction ;  while  that  which  has  cared  rather  for  man 
whom  it  can,  than  for  God  whom  it  cannot,  benefit,  has 
become  the  City  of  Humanity,  which  shall  endure  for 
ever.' 

"  The  Interpreter  then  said  that,  as  there  were  unhap- 
pily few  pilgrims  as  yet  going  in  my  direction,  he  would  be 
able  to  accompany  me  on  a  part  of  the  way.  I  was  not  so 
near,  he  said,  as  I  might  suppose.  *  That  great  metropolis 
which  you  see  is  not  the  city  you  seek ;  it  is  Bothworlds- 
burg,  and,  though  commercially  connected  with  the  City 
of  Humanity,  owns  allegiance  to  the  Prince  of  Otherworld- 
liness, whose  powerful  agencies  therein  are  marked  by  its 
spires.  Its  inhabitants  pass  six  sevenths  of  their  time  in 
this  world,  and  during  the  other  seventh  pray  to  their 
Prince,  and  protest  louldly  against  taking  any  thought  at 
all  for  this  life.  The  confines  of  Bothworldsburg  blend 
with  those  of  the  City  of  Humanity,  which  you  can  hardly 
trace  out  from  here,  and,  indeed,  may  have  some  difficulty 
in  finding.  You  must  go  through  the  tedious  paths  of 
Study,  Reality,  and  Devotion,  and  when  you  arrive  at  the 
suburbs  you  will  still  have  to  be  a  pilgrim  amid  many 
nights  and  days  before  you  reach  the  heart  of  the  city. 


PROLEGOMENA  7 

After  arriving  there,  you  will  be  left  a  good  deal  to  your 
own  guidance :  the  inhabitants  are  very  busy  ;  they  do  not 
sit  on  purple  clouds  blowing  golden  trumpets.  The  only 
prayer  to  the  Lord  of  that  city  is  work ;  the  only  praise 
is  virtue.  Its  treasures  are  not  obvious,  but  in  hard  ores. 
You  will  find  the  pavements  golden  only  when  you  can 
transmute  them  to  gold  ;  and  only  if  you  have  found  a  pearl 
to  carry  in  your  own  breast  will  its  gates  become  pearl.'  " 

When  a  mind  starts  out  under  the  impulse  of  a  religious 
sentiment  in  a  direction  radically  different  from  that  in 
which  it  had  been  trained,  it  is  not  a  revolution  but  an 
evolution  that  is  begun.  The  important  thing  is  not  this 
or  that  incident  of  experience,  but  the  new  way  of  looking 
at  things.  Assuming  that  such  a  mind  would  not  break 
with  its  Past,  its  circle  of  sympathies  and  friendships, 
except  for  loyalty  to  truth,  and  consequently  not  bend  the 
commanding  facts  to  suit  personal  prejudices  or  interests, 
it  can  hardly  fail  to  find  that  it  undergoes  a  new  birth.  It 
then  follows  steadily  that  its  whole  mental  environment 
must  become  new,  —  even  as  an  early  apostle  discovered 
that  in  Christ  neither  circumcision  nor  uncircumcision 
availed  anything,  but  a  new  creation.  Thus  my  whole 
little  world  of  conceptions  must  be  revised  from  a  new 
standpoint. 

How  many  books  are  to  be  found  which  deal  with  the 
mental  and  moral  facts  of  human  life  without  prejudice 
and  without  estimating  them  by  some  traditional  stand- 
ard or  authority?  How  many  travellers  have  told  me 
about  Eastern  and  Oriental  religions,  —  about  Catholics, 
Mormons,  Jews,  or  "Pagan"  systems,  —  without  merely 
measuring  them  by  their  remoteness  from  or  proximity  to 
their  own  particular  beliefs  ?  How  many  can  tell  me,  — 
without  any  thought  whatever  about  what  they  think  good 


8  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

for  those  foreign  "  souls,"  —  exactly  what  fruits  of  simple 
human  happiness  those  trees  are  bearing  for  individual 
hearts  and  homes  ? 

When  one  ceases  to  regard  mankind  as  masses  rushing 
into  praeternatural  heavens  and  hells,  the  torments  or 
joys  of  human  beings  in  this  world  become  of  supreme 
importance. 

Intellectually  we  all  necessarily  stand  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  Past,  but  here  too  the  revision  must  determine 
whether  our  stand  is  on  real  or  unreal  shoulders.  With 
far  less  learning  than  the  great  writers  on  Buddha,  Zoro- 
aster, Solomon,  Jesus,  I  was  compelled  to  bring  on  them 
the  searchlight  of  my  simple  earthly  point  of  view,  apart 
from  all  academic  or  theological  interpretations,  whether 
of  their  worshippers  or  their  antagonists. 

In  1882  an  invitation  was  received  by  me  to  give  lec- 
tures in  Australia.  Two  eminent  gentlemen  of  Melbourne, 
Robert  J.  Jeffray  and  Henry  G.  Turner,  who  on  occasional 
visits  to  London  had  attended  my  chapel,  volunteered  to 
make  arrangements  for  the  lectures;  my  South  Place 
people  were  content  that  after  nearly  twenty  years  in 
their  service  I  should  enjoy  a  voyage  round  the  world, 
lecturers  being  at  hand  to  take  my  place ;  my  wife,  whose 
mother  (beloved  of  all  who  knew  her)  was  able  to  stay 
with  her,  decided  that  I  should  go ;  and  so,  after  being 
honoured  by  our  fellow-villagers  of  Bedford  Park  with 
a  dinner,  I  found  myself  —  July  21,  1883  —  on  the  ship 
Arizona  bound  for  New  York. 

I  have  always  been  healthy  and  happy  at  sea,  but  on 
that  beautiful  July  day  when  we  passed  out  of  land  there 
rolled  from  my  shoulders  a  burden  of  which  I  had  been 
hardly  more  conscious  than  of  the  weight  of  the  atmos- 
phere. Since  my  youth  a  public  teacher,  in  the  stormy 


PROLEGOMENA  9 

life-voyage  of  more  than  thirty  years  I  had  been  as  one  of 
the  crew  always  under  orders,  and  with  but  few  intervals 
wherein  I  could  enjoy  the  easy  chair  of  a  passenger  and 
be  myself  a  learner  instead  of  a  preacher.  And  now  at 
fifty,  having  reached  the  conscious  need  of  revising  my 
beliefs  and  taking  stock  of  my  ideas,  —  lo,  here  shone 
niy  splendour  of  opportunity ! 

In  one  of  my  early  years  I  became  curious  about  the 
infinitesimal  world,  and,  providing  myself  with  a  micro- 
scope and  some  books  on  that  study,  was  sufficiently 
interested  to  begin  an  essay  which  I  called  "  The  Circum- 
navigation of  a  Dew-drop."  But  I  did  not  get  far.  The 
dew-drop  was  too  deep  for  me.  Out  of  it  swarmed  surmises 
about  the  origin  of  life,  the  development  of  forms,  and  the 
moral  mysteries  of  infusorial  combats  and  cannibalism. 
For  such  problems  I  had  no  competency ;  and  as  for  the 
physical  revelations  of  the  microscope,  I  could  only  recite 
the  discoveries  of  scientific  investigators.  And  in  the  great 
globe  which  I  was  to  circumnavigate,  how  little  had  I  seen 
except  through  the  eyes  and  lenses  of  others ! 

So  it  might  continue  in  matters  of  large  import,  —  the 
physical,  political,  commercial  conditions  of  the  countries 
through  which  I  was  to  travel.  Grateful  am  I  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  any  master,  and  nothing  could  give  me  more  hap- 
piness than  to  find  a  master  in  the  field  to  which  the  en- 
ergies of  my  life  have  been  given,  —  religion  and  religions. 

But  herein  my  researches  and  experiences  gradually 
developed  eyes  of  my  own.  Whether  they  are  strong  or 
feeble,  exact  or  inexact,  they  are  my  own  organically,  my 
only  ones ;  and  if  they  cannot  weigh  the  full  value  of 
what  they  see  there  is  always  the  hope  that  others  will 
derive  from  a  truthful  report  some  contribution  to  know- 
ledge, —  if  only  an  example  of  visual  perversity ! 


10  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

A  company  of  gentlemen  travelling  in  a  far  country  — 
savants,  artists,  writers — casually  met  together  after 
they  had  travelled  over  the  same  road,  and  talked  about 
what  they  had  observed.  One  had  added  some  rare  spe- 
cimens to  his  collection  of  butterflies,  but  could  not  recall 
the  exquisite  landscapes  of  which  an  artist  had  sketches ; 
nor  had  either  noticed  the  peasants  photographed  by  the 
anthropologist ;  and  none  of  those  remembered  seeing  a 
wondrous  mirage  which  had  been  observed  by  another 
of  the  company.  While  they  were  exchanging  their  in- 
teresting observations,  in  no  case  the  same,  a  child  passed 
by  with  a  fragment  of  yellow-tinted  stone  in  its  hand ;  a 
geologist  present  examined  the  stone,  saw  gold  in  it,  was 
guided  by  the  child  to  the  spot  where  it  was  found,  and 
the  company  formed  themselves  into  a  syndicate  to  buy 
up  a  new  gold  district. 

Each  of  us  has  his  own  experiences,  his  particular  train- 
ing of  cares  and  trials,  a  personal  history  combined  with 
his  individuality ;  each  of  us  sees  really  only  what  he  has 
a  mind  (of  his  own)  to  see.  Even  impressions  that  some 
thought  childish  have  proved  to  be  of  equal  importance 
with  the  most  imposing  phenomena. 

I  sat  on  the  deck  of  the  Arizona  and  read  a  wonderful 
work  —  "  The  Undiscovered  Country,"  by  W.  D.  How- 
ells.  It  would  have  brought  joy  to  Shakespeare  had  he 
foreseen  that  words  of  his  own  would  make  the  title  of  a 
book  so  veined  with  poetry  and  wisdom.  "Wisdom  "is 
a  word  one  connects  with  a  man  or  a  book  less  frequently 
as  one  grows  older ;  but  it  is  surely  a  secret  of  Wisdom 
to  see  the  romance  of  our  time  while  it  is  passing.  It  is 
easy  to  recognize  the  fairyland  of  our  childhood  when  it 
is  irrevocably  lost,  easy  to  recognize  the  romance  of  fore- 
going generations  when  it  has  written  itself  in  events  and 


PROLEGOMENA  11 

contrasts :  but  who  will  rehearse  the  romance  of  the  hour 
that  is  shining  ?  In  this  novel  Howells  takes  up  the  su- 
perstitions grouped  under  the  name  of  Spiritualism,  shows 
us  the  depth  of  human  tenderness  to  which  this  despised 
thing  appeals,  reveals  the  religious  sentiment  that  plays 
into  the  hands  of  impostors. 

In  a  sense,  the  whole  world  is  mainly  an  undiscovered 
country.  Ancient  Spiritisms,  systematized  and  grown  re- 
spectable, hide  the  realities  under  veils  of  fable  embroid- 
ered by  poetry  and  art.  Naked  truth  is  ashamed.  And 
there  is  pathos  in  this.  Had  the  real  earth  been  sweet 
and  maternal,  mankind  would  not  have  woven  for  it  those 
veils  lustrous  with  loves  and  graces,  angels  and  madonnas. 
Through  rents  in  the  veils  made  by  science  the  reality 
revealed  in  glimpses  is  so  cold  and  hard  that  even  the 
disillusioned  must  use  the  illusions  (quasi-pathologically) 
for  their  urgent  effects.  In  Howells's  novel  the  two  Har- 
vard scholars  detect  the  lovely  "  medium,"  but  are  dis- 
armed, and  even  made  virtual  accomplices,  when  they 
discover  that  she  is  there  alone  in  mortal  combat  for  the 
life  of  her  father,  saved  from  fatal  despair  by  her  pre- 
tended messages  from  his  dead  wife.  The  sympathetic 
youths  represent  all  scientific  sceptics  in  their  tenderness 
for  the  illusions  that  are  happy.  Bigotry  is  not  so  tender, 
but  eager  to  reduce  to  tatters  all  veils  but  its  own,  espe- 
cially if  the  others  are  pretty. 

Tout  comprendre  c'est  tout  pardonner.  In  an  undis- 
covered world  we  do  now  and  then,  fortunately,  discover 
each  other  —  individually  —  and  especially  when  out  of 
our  habitat.  On  the  Arizona  the  famous  Catholic,  Mon- 
seigneur  Capel,  took  evident  pleasure  in  promenading 
with  an  eminent  Jewish  writer ;  an  evangelist  going  out 
to  assist  revivalist  Moody  chatted  pleasantly  with  the 


12  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

accomplished  actress,  Georgie  Cayvan,  without  warning 
her  that  on  the  stage  she  was  charming  crowds  to  hell. 
A  Baltimore  Doctor  of  Divinity,  aware  of  my  heresies, 
conversed  with  me  without  the  least  "  holier-than-thou  " 
accent.  In  a  vision  I  saw  the  Catholic  Monseigneur  leap 
at  the  Jew's  throat,  and  the  Doctor  of  Divinity  preparing 
a  stake  —  the  evangelist  bringing  faggots  and  fire  —  for 
my  poor  heretical  self.  But  Steam  is  a  comrade  of  Lati- 
tudinarianism.  The  ancient  persecutors  never  experienced 
long  voyages  away  from  their  conventicles,  with  non-elect 
companies  and  schismatics,  through  fogs,  near  icebergs, 
amid  ocean  wastes,  with  only  a  thin  partition  separating 
them  and  their  opponents  from  a  common  abyss. 

Goethe  said  to  a  friend  that  he  believed  in  immortality 
but  did  not  wish  to  enjoy  it  with  the  people  who  believe  in 
it  here.  Could  we  all  content  ourselves  with  one  world  at 
a  time  we  could  fraternize  on  our  planet  as  on  a  larger 
ship  floating  through  space,  its  passengers  races  and 
nations,  all  eager  to  get  at  each  other's  wit  and  wisdom  ; 
even  as  at  an  entertainment  on  the  Arizona  our  orthodox 
Doctor  of  Divinity,  in  presiding,  invited  the  Jew,  the 
Catholic,  the  actress,  and  the  heretic  to  amuse  the  com- 
pany, —  invited  us  with  a  cordiality  which  gave  mystical 
significance  to  his  opening  words :  "  We  feel  secure  on 
this  ship,  thanks  to  the  heavenly  Father;  but  on  some 
other  ships  people  are  not  so  safe !  " 

Ah,  if  this  amiable  Doctor  of  Divinity  could  only  attain 
to  the  idea  of  a  heavenly  Father  watching  as  vigilantly 
and  lovingly  over  the  Buddhist  ship,  —  the  Brahman, 
Moslem,  Parsi,  Confucian  ships,  —  as  over  the  "  Ship  of 
Zion  "  bearing  him  and  his  co-religionists !  the  sun  to  rise 
on  them,  the  winds  to  waft,  the  waves  to  support  them ! 
It  seems  that  Protestantism,  the  religion  of  the  most 


PROLEGOMENA  13 

powerful  race,  has  become  the  only  one  that  excludes  any 
human  being  from  the  paternal  care  of  its  deity.  The 
Roman  Catholic  Church  has  so  universalized  its  Purga- 
tory that  the  doctrine  of  an  eternal  hell  has  virtually 
diminished  into  an  antiquated  phrase.  Parsism  even  in 
the  time  of  Zoroaster  prophesied  the  conversion  of 
Ahriman,  as  Judaism  did  that  of  Leviathan.  Educated 
Christians  do  not  believe  in  the  old  hell,  nor  in  the  eter- 
nity of  any  kind  of  misery,  but  the  tenacity  with  which 
they  maintain  the  old  terrors  in  catechism  and  creed 
proves  that  their  "  religion  "  does  not  aim  or  hope  for  a 
happy  earth.  Happiness  is  reserved  for  another  world. 

But  has  not  this  world  as  much  right  to  happiness  as 
any  other  ?  Unhappiness  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  From  it 
springs  meanness,  vice,  crime,  bitterness,  injustice.  Hap- 
piness is  the  sacred  spirit,  the  mother  of  virtues.  What 
imaginable  function  has  religion  except  to  promote  human 
happiness  ?  If  there  be  a  universal  Heart  it  suffers  from 
every  human  sigh  and  tear,  it  bleeds  with  every  falling 
sparrow,  it  "  answereth  man  in  the  joy  of  his  heart." 


CHAPTER    I 

The  Cult  of  Patriotism  —  Robert  G.  Ingersoll —  A  black  mark  on  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  —  Pilgrimages  to  Virginia  —  The  original 
aborigines  —  The  first  church  in  North  America — Cruelties  of  coloni- 
zation—  Christmas  reunions  of  revolutionary  veterans  —  A  Song  of 
Seventy-six  —  Mary  Washington  —  Seamy  side  of  the  Revolution. 

AS  we  were  entering  New  York  harbour  one  of  the 
wealthiest  Americans  came  out  on  his  fine  steam- 
yacht  and  carried  off  his  returning  son.  This  young 
man  had  been  such  a  genial  and  unpretending  comrade 
on  our  voyage  that  it  was  only  when  we  were  approaching 
the  figure  of  Liberty  that  her  torch  enlightened  us  as  to 
her  remoteness  from  Equality,  the  lesson  being  further 
impressed  upon  us  —  the  millionless  and  yachtless  —  by 
our  slow  progress  through  the  Customs. 

But  the  inequality  created  by  pecuniary  conditions  is 
not  all  to  the  advantage  of  the  millionaire.  The  com- 
paratively impecunious  are  sure  to  invest  him,  without 
respect  to  his  merits  or  demerits,  with  an  unpleasing 
reputation.  I  never  met  this  millionaire,  but  was  told  by 
honourable  and  well-informed  business  men  that  he  was 
an  irreproachable  domestic  character,  not  luxurious  or 
self-indulgent,  forbearing  and  generous  towards  those 
with  whom  he  had  dealings,  and  that  like  Dives  in  the 
parable  he  was  popularly  consigned  to  a  bad  place  simply 
because  he  was  rich. 

In  New  York  my  two  sons,  who  had  settled  there,  had 
made  pleasant  plans  for  me,  and  I  remained  long  enough 
to  meet  eminent  men ;  among  them  John  Jay,  Cyrus 


16  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

Field,  William  and  Joseph  Choate,  Whitelaw  Reid, 
Evarts,  Stedman,  Youmans,  Godkin,  Gilder,  Charles  A. 
Dana,  Randolph  Robinson,  Horace  White.  I  found  them 
all  optimists  in  their  view  of  public  affairs.  North  and 
South  were  now  hand  in  hand,  they  said,  and  municipal 
corruption  in  New  York  nearly  at  an  end. 

At  that  time  the  Jingo  did  not  exist  in  America :  in 
Europe  one  might  occasionally  meet  countrymen  who  paid 
tribute  for  passing  most  of  their  time  abroad  by  loud 
encomiums  of  everything  in  America  and  disparagement 
of  "  the  Old  World."  One  of  these,  a  cultured  gentleman 
from  Massachusetts,  a  bachelor  of  some  wealth,  passed 
his  time  with  literary  men  and  artists  in  Europe.  Once 
when  we  were  dining  together  in  Paris  he  broke  out  with 
denunciations  of  Europe  as  a  century  behind  America, 
and  I  said,  "  My  friend,  I  have  been  meeting  you,  and 
always  gladly,  for  twenty-five  years,  but  never  in  America. 
It  is  always  in  London,  Paris,  or  in  Rome.  Even  when  I 
have  been  occasionally  in  Boston  and  have  inquired  for 
you,  they  have  reported  you  in  Europe.  How  can  you 
bear  to  absent  yourself  from  that  perfect  country?" 
After  a  few  moments  he  whispered :  "  The  fault  is  not 
in  America,  but  in  me ;  I  am  not  good  enough  to  live  in 
America ! " 

For  myself,  it  was  at  a  moment  when  I  was  not  warlike 
enough  for  America,  as  related  in  my  Autobiography,  that 
I  was  transplanted  to  London.  Always  retaining  my 
American  citizenship,  I  yet  could  not  conceive  of  a  country 
as  lovable  apart  from  the  people  in  it.  There  survives  in 
us  the  instinct  that  leads  a  bird  to  brood  on  its  eggs ;  but 
as  it  is  not  supposable  that  the  bird  has  any  maternal 
sentiment  towards  an  egg,  it  seems  hardly  natural  that 
any  enthusiasm  should  arise  in  a  nation  for  the  inanimate 


THE   CULT  OF  PATRIOTISM  17 

materials  out  of  which  its  population  is  produced.  In  early 
youth  I  was  possessed  by  a  passionate  love  of  Virginia 
because  the  State  was  personified  as  the  fair  "  Mother  of 
States  and  of  Statesmen,"  and  was  denounced  by  North- 
ern people  because  of  Slavery,  —  which  had  become  our 
new  religion.  When  I  gave  up  that  religion  I  was  able  to 
analyze  "  patriotism,"  and  recognize  that  it  was  largely  a 
cult.  An  ancient  Persian  said,  "  Diversities  of  religion 
have  divided  the  world  into  seventy-two  nations."  Our 
proslavery  religion  endeavoured  to  add  another.  So  soon 
as  the  gods  mingle  in  human  discussions  soul  is  sundered 
from  soul.  The  story  of  Babel  looks  like  a  poetic  fable 
by  which  some  primitive  sceptic  conveyed  his  theory  that 
mankind  worked  together  harmoniously  to  build  up  civ- 
ilization, but  when  they  reached  a  point  where  disputes 
about  gods  arose  they  could  no  longer  understand  each 
other,  and  all  their  achievement  went  to  ruin.  Each 
builder  surrounded  his  god  with  some  "  sacred  soil "  and 
defensive  frontiers,  and  when  he  had  persuaded  or  tempted 
others  to  join  him,  and  others  had  been  compelled  to 
come  in,  the  cult  of  "  patriotism"  arose.  All  enthusiasm 
for  one's  country  not  based  on  the  wise  and  just  men  and 
women  in  it,  and  the  freedom  and  happiness  of  its  inhab- 
itants, is  of  artificial  cultivation.  And  for  that  very  reason 
patriotism,  in  this  egoistic  sense,  is  able  to  overpower 
natural  instincts  and  emotions ;  just  as  a  religious  cult 
in  all  time  has  shown  its  power  to  train  men  to  worship 
and  fight  for  cruel  deities  whom  their  unsophisticated 
sentiment  would  abhor. 

The  natural  evolution  of  patriotism  would  be  to  consider 
it  as  the  expansion  of  the  family  sentiment.  It  is  not  an 
egoistic  but  an  unselfish  feeling  which  causes  us  to  be 
especially  concerned  with  that  which  is  within  our  reach, 


18  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

and  for  which  we  are  to  some  extent  responsible.  A  child 
run  over  at  my  door,  or  a  murder  near  my  residence,  pro- 
duces a  more  profound  emotion  in  me  than  the  destruction 
of  multitudes  in  some  distant  land.  It  is  an  artificial 
patriotism  which  leads  men  to  national  expansions  dic- 
tated by  pride,  and  it  is  also  a  subversive  patriotism  when 
it  leads  to  aggressions  for  the  sake  of  any  national  interest. 
The  gentlemen  whom  I  have  mentioned  as  having  met  in 
New  York,  some  of  my  early  friends,  had  like  myself 
memories  of  the  years  when  as  boys  we  lit  patriotic  bon- 
fires for  our  country's  criminal  victories  over  Mexico  ;  we 
remembered  well  the  glories  gained  by  our  flag  by  the 
massacres  of  our  poor  aborigines ;  and  how  patriotism  had 
summoned  us  to  run  with  the  bloodhounds  to  hunt  men 
and  women  escaping  from  slavery  and  return  them  to 
bondage.  It  could  not  occur  to  any  of  them  that  in  a 
few  years  that  same  kind  of  patriotism  would  summon 
us  to  rejoice  in  a  repetition  on  Spain  of  the  outrage  on 
Mexico,  or  to  be  elated  when,  after  freeing  four  millions 
of  coloured  people,  we  should  proceed  to  purchase  ten  mil- 
lions of  them,  and  slay  and  torture  them  into  submission. 
Still  less  could  any  of  us  imagine  that  the  artificial  cultiva- 
tion and  cult  of  flag- worship  could  blind  our  nation  as  a 
whole  to  the  monstrous  absurdity  that  we  should  assume 
control  over  any  foreign  —  especially  any  coloured  —  race 
when  we  are  unable  to  protect  our  own  negro  citizens 
from  being  freely  slain  and  even  burned  alive. 

It  was  inevitable  that  an  old  student  of  literature  and 
art  should  estimate  a  country  by  its  great  men  and 
women,  —  thinkers,  writers,  artists,  —  to  whom  he  could 
look  up.  Many  of  those  at  whose  feet  I  had  sat  in 
America  were  dead,  and  American  art  was  to  such  an  ex- 
tent transplanted  to  Europe  that  it  was  difficult  to  set 


ROBERT  G.   INGERSOLL  19 

my  native  land  above  England  and  France ;  but  it  seemed 
a  sufficient  compensation  for  the  loss  of  the  high  peaks  if 
the  plains  were  smiling  with  fine  harvests.  I  was  assured 
by  good  observers  that  the  American  people  were  receiving 
better  wages  and  living  in  happier  homes  than  the  masses 
of  any  other  country,  that  they  were  being  educated,  and 
there  must  spring  up  a  race  of  thinkers  greater  than  our 
lost  masters. 

It  was  a  stage  in  my  pilgrimage  to  visit  in  his  hand- 
some mansion  in  New  York  a  man  who  had  for  some 
time  appeared  to  me  the  most  striking  figure  in  religious 
America,  —  Robert  G.  Ingersoll.  Many  years  before  a 
young  relative  of  my  wife,  William  Jenckes,  had  sent  me 
to  London  a  book  on  "  The  Gods,"  apparently  made  up 
of  occasional  addresses  by  Ingersoll.  He  was  then  styled 
Colonel  Ingersoll  because  of  his  services  in  the  Union 
War,  and  he  had  also  been  a  member  of  Congress.  In  one 
of  these  lectures  he  had  said,  "  An  honest  God  is  the  no- 
blest work  of  man,"  which  became  a  sort  of  Western  pro- 
verb. In  1881,  being  on  a  visit  to  Boston,  my  wife  and  I 
found  ourselves  in  the  Parker  House  with  the  Ingersolls, 
and  went  over  to  Charlestown  to  hear  him  lecture.  His 
subject  was  "  The  Mistakes  of  Moses,"  and  it  was  a  mem- 
orable experience.  Our  lost  leaders,  —  Emerson,  Thoreau, 
Theodore  Parker,  —  who  had  really  spoken  to  disciples 
rather  than  to  the  nation,  seemed  to  have  contributed 
something  to  form  this  organ  by  which  their  voice  could 
reach  the  people.  Every  variety  of  power  was  in  this  ora- 
tor,—  logic  and  poetry,  humour  and  imagination,  sim- 
plicity and  dramatic  art,  moral  earnestness  and  bound- 
less sympathy.  The  wonderful  power  which  Washington's 
attorney-general,  Edmund  Randolph,  ascribed  to  Thomas 
Paine  of  insinuating  his  ideas  equally  into  learned  and 


20  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

unlearned  had  passed  from  Paine's  pen  to  Ingersoll's 
tongue.  The  effect  on  the  people  was  indescribable.  The 
large  theatre  was  crowded  from  pit  to  dome.  The  people 
were  carried  from  plaudits  of  his  argument  to  loud  laugh- 
ter at  his  humorous  sentences,  and  his  flexible  voice  carried 
the  sympathies  of  the  assembly  with  it,  at  times  moving 
them  to  tears  by  his  pathos. 

That  which  especially  attracted  me  in  Ingersoll's  lec- 
tures and  pamphlets  was  that  his  affirmations  were  con- 
veyed by  negations.  My  friend  and  relative,  Moncure 
Robinson,  Sr.T  of  Philadelphia,  recognized  the  great  power 
of  Ingersoll,  but  deplored  its  being  used  to  pull  down 
without  building  up.  But  I  found  that  what  my  venerable 
friend  was  thinking  of  was  not  the  destruction  of  dogmas 
or  of  creeds,  but  his  feeling  that  churches  were  valuable  in- 
stitutions, and  that  Ingersoll  did  not  even  attempt  to  found 
any  institution  that  could  assist  in  the  spiritual  culture 
and  charities  of  which  families  had  need.  But  I  felt  that 
this  was  the  only  kind  of  work  that  could  be  done  really 
by  free  thought.  Were  it  to  build  Tip  any  institution  it 
might  be  founded  on  scientific  doctrines  necessarily  tran- 
sient, and  imitate  the  pious  habit  by  fortifying  and  de- 
fending some  particular  form  of  unbelief. 

The  perfect  freedom  of  Ingersoll's  mind  was  often 
illustrated  in  his  lecture;  as  for  instance,  after  having 
cited  from  the  Bible  some  narrative  of  terrible  cruelty 
ascribed  to  the  command  of  Jehovah,  he  paused  for  nearly  a 
minute,  then  lifting  his  hand  and  looking  upward  he  said 
solemnly,  "  I  trust  that  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  will  take 
notice,  that  I  am  down  here  on  earth  denouncing  this  libel 
on  his  character." 

The  country  was  full  of  incidents  and  anecdotes  relat- 
ing to  these  marvellous  lectures.  Once  when  he  was  lectur- 


INGERSOLL'S   PLEA  21 

ing  at  San  Francisco  on  a  Sunday  evening  in  a  crowded 
theatre,  some  man  in  the  audience  cried,  "  Do  you  believe 
in  baptism  ?  "  Ingersoll  replied  good-naturedly,  "  Yes,  — 
especially  with  soap !  " 

Long  before  his  reputation  as  a  free  thinker  was  made 
lie  was  noted  in  the  West  for  his  great  ability  in  defend- 
ing persons  in  danger  of  injustice.  George  Hoadly,  for- 
mer governor  of  Ohio,  told  me  that  on  one  occasion  he 
defended  an  humble  man  charged  with  manslaughter, 
which  had  occurred  in  some  broil.  Ingersoll  came  into 
court  and  after  listening  to  the  prosecution  arose  and  said, 
"  On  my  way  to  this  room  I  stopped  at  the  house  of  a 
poor  woman.  She  had  been  confined  while  her  husband 
was  in  prison  —  the  prisoner  at  the  bar.  The  woman  lay 
on  her  bed  with  the  infant  beside  her,  and  with  tears  in 
her  eyes  she  said  to  me,  '  Send  me  back  my  husband ;  he 
is  a  good  husband,  a  good  father,  an  industrious  man. 
Oh,  send  me  back  my  husband !  ' ' '  There  was  a  moment's 
silence  after  Ingersoll  said  this  in  his  tender  voice,  and 
then  one  of  the  jury  cried  out,  "  By  God,  Bob,  we  '11  do 
it!" 

Ingersoll  never  started  out  in  life  to  be  a  leader  of  free 
thought.  He  was  a  very  able  lawyer,  and  by  his  profes- 
sion gained  reputation  and  wealth ;  his  religious  icono- 
clasm  was  incidental.  In  his  experience  in  many  States 
he  saw  much  of  the  provincial  narrowness  and  intolerance 
arising  from  what  he  considered  superstition,  and  now 
and  then  in  the  intervals  of  the  court  sittings  he  would 
speak  to  small  clubs  of  secularists  or  admirers  of  Thomas 
Paine ;  these  addresses  found  their  way  to  the  public  and 
excited  pulpit  denunciations,  and  as  he  was  always  ready 
to  answer,  his  audiences  swelled  until  it  was  difficult  to 
get  a  seat  in  the  always  crowded  theatres. 


22  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

There  was  nothing  of  the  scoffer  about  Ingersoll ;  he  did 
not  fling  epithets,  but  argued  his  case  before  the  crowd  as 
if  they  were  judges  and  jurymen.  In  all  the  lectures  of 
his  which  I  have  heard  I  remarked  the  chastity  of  his 
mind  and  speech.  Even  at  the  cost  of  a  strong  point  he 
would  avoid  dwelling  on  biblical  details  which  he  thought 
obscene.  Of  course  he  did  not  fail  to  assert  that  there 
were  such  passages,  and  in  answer  to  clergymen  contend- 
ing that  morality  depended  on  the  Bible,  Ingersoll  said, 
"  I  will  give  any  respectable  clergyman  a  thousand  dollars 
if  he  will  read  to  his  congregation  on  Sunday  every  word 
of  a  chapter  I  shall  select  from  the  Bible."  This  challenge 
was  of  course  not  accepted,  and  it  was  a  blow  all  the  more 
effective  because  of  the  orator's  always  unblemished  per- 
sonal character  and  his  charities. 

There  were  several  months  during  which  an  ailment  of 
the  throat  prevented  Ingersoll  from  speaking  in  public. 
Curiosity  and  interest  in  the  South  led  me  to  an  assembly 
in  Brooklyn  met  to  welcome  a  Southern  revivalist,  — 
Rev.  Sam  Jones,  —  who  said  in  his  address,  "The  only 
way  with  infidels  is  to  stop  their  talking ;  a  touch  on  the 
throat  of  Ingersoll" — a  burst  of  laughter  from  the 
preachers  present  ended  the  sentence.  It  was  something 
like  the  scene  in  Lucian  where  the  gods  descend  to  attend 
invisibly  a  debate  on  their  own  existence  between  two 
Athenians.  The  atheist  getting  the  better  of  the  argu- 
ment, the  champion  of  the  gods  breaks  out  with  personal 
vituperation,  much  to  the  delight  of  Zeus,  who  says,  "  That 
is  the  way !  when  you  try  to  argue  you  are  dumb  as  a 
fish ! "  There  being  no  possibility  of  personal  abuse  in 
Ingersoll's  case,  this  revivalist  suggests  to  Jupiter  the 
only  method  by  which  the  great  lawyer's  arguments  could 
be  met,  —  strangulation.  But  meanwhile  Ingersoll  in  his 


[Letter  from  Robert  G.  Ingersoll] 


2* 


fr 


INGERSOLL  AND   WHITMAN  23 

enforced  repose  was  preparing,  and  was  presently  deliver- 
ing, lectures  more  formidable  than  ever. 

I  was  somewhat  amused  by  Mrs.  Farrell,  who  in  her 
boundless  devotion  to  her  brother  confided  to  me  that  she 
had  remarked  that  "every  public  speaker  who  had  de- 
famed Robert  had  somehow  come  to  a  bad  end."  No  doubt 
this  lady,  a  very  spirititelle  and  attractive  freethinker,  has 
in  her  mind  some  chain  of  cause  and  effect  in  the  pheno- 
mena, —  of  which  she  mentioned  several  examples,  —  but 
it  recalled  the  widespread  feeling  of  Thomas  Paine's  com- 
rades, that  his  many  escapes  from  imminent  death  were 
somehow  providential.  But  there  is  no  doubt  whatever 
about  the  special  providence  that  surrounded  Ingersoll  in 
his  own  home.  As  at  Harvard  Divinity  School  we  used 
the  title  of  Professor  Andrews  Norton's  book  and  described 
his  daughters  as  the  "Evidences  of  Christianity,"  the 
happy  faces  of  those  lovely  ladies, — wife,  daughters,  sister, 
—  and  the  domestic  happiness  of  Ingersoll  himself,  were 
widely  felt  as  evidences  of  the  benign  influences  of  free- 
thought.  Indeed,  it  could  not  fail  to  be  remarked  in  how 
many  tender  and  touching  passages  in  his  lectures  were 
reflected  the  family  affections  of  this  large-hearted  orator. 

On  IngersolTs  last  visit  to  Walt  "Whitman,  —  to  whom 
he  was  bountiful,  —  he  said,  "  Walt,  the  mistake  of  your 
life  was  that  you  did  not  marry.  There  ought  to  be  a 
woman  here,"  he  added,  looking  around  at  the  poor  cha- 
otic room.  (Ingersoll's  address  at  the  funeral  of  Walt 
Whitman  was  the  grandest  and  most  impressive  utterance 
of  that  kind  which  I  have  ever  heard.) 

One  very  intimate  in  the  family  told  me  that  whenever 
one  of  them  applied  for  money,  Ingersoll  never  asked 
how  much,  or  what  it  was  for,  but  pointed  to  a  drawer 
and  said,  "  There  it  is ;  help  yourself." 


24  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

I  have  gone  far  ahead  of  the  year  when  I  first  talked 
with  Ingersoll  in  his  own  home.  My  call  had  no  purpose 
except  to  pay  some  homage  to  the  ablest  freethinker 
America  has  produced.  I  remember  nothing  of  our  con- 
versation except  that  he  surprised  me  by  his  thorough 
knowledge  of  Shakespeare.  He  interested  me  also  by  some 
of  his  conjectures ;  for  instance,  that  the  habit  of  closing 
the  eyes  in  prayer  may  have  originated  in  prayers  to  the 
dazzling  sun.  I  did  not  agree  with  some  of  Ingersoll's 
opinions,  but  I  had  recognized  the  hatred  swelling  against 
a  man  of  genius,  —  more  religious  in  my  sense  than  the 
old  preacher,  his  father,  —  and  I  knew  that  he  was  leading 
an  insurrection  of  human  hearts  against  the  inhumanities 
of  the  Bible  and  the  cruelties  of  dogmatic  propagandism. 
I  did  not,  however,  then  imagine  it  possible  that  orthodox 
hatred  could  ever  so  override  the  old  traditions  of  reli- 
gious liberty  in  America  as  to  compel  Ingersoll  to  resign 
the  nomination  as  minister  to  Germany,  conferred  on  him 
by  President  Hayes. 

At  Washington  I  took  a  long  look  at  the  original 
draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  especially 
noted  the  long  black  mark  of  Jefferson's  pen  cancelling 
the  paragraph  denouncing  negro  slavery.  That  mark, 
dictated  by  South  Carolina  and  Georgia,  widened  in  less 
than  three  generations  into  the  vast  battlefield  where 
from  South  Carolina  was  fired  the  first  gun.  The  chief 
centre  of  that  battlefield  was  the  region  of  Virginia  I  was 
about  to  visit.  I  found  there  that  the  people  had  no  longer 
any  hatred  of  the  North,  and  that  the  whites  and  blacks 
were  dwelling  together  peaceably  and  kindly.  The  plague 
of  lynching  had  not  yet  broken  out  even  in  the  far  South 
(and  indeed  it  has  never  ravaged  Virginia).  On  my 
two  previous  visits  since  the  war  its  traces  on  the  country 


VIRTUAL  OUTLAWRY  25 

were  more  visible  than  in  1883 ;  the  fields  were  now  more 
smiling.  But  somehow  the  desolation  of  the  inhabitants 
appeared  greater.  Old  age  seemed  to  have  overswiftly 
come  upon  them.  George  Sand's  grandmother,  speaking 
of  her  husband,  twice  her  age,  said  he  never  got  old.  "  In 
those  days  French  gentlemen  never  got  old ;  it  was  the 
Revolution  that  brought  old  age  into  France." 

The  personal  events  that  strike  deepest  in  a  man  work 
out  their  effects  slowly.  The  tree  whose  root  lightning 
has  touched  may  seem  unscathed,  but  after  some  months 
the  foliage  loses  the  old  freshness,  and  in  another  season 
it  stands  bare  amid  the  flourishing  grove.  The  mysterious 
and  indefinable  lightning  that  touched  the  innermost  life 
in  me  was  the  virtual  outlawry  I  suffered  in  1863  for  hav- 
ing proposed  to  abandon  the  war  against  the  Confederates 
on  condition  of  a  guaranteed  emancipation  of  all  their 
slaves.  There  were  just  two  voices  that  came  to  me  from 
America  declaring  that  I  was  right,  —  that  of  my  wife 
and  that  of  the  Hon.  Martin  F.  Conway,  who  had  just 
lost  his  seat  in  Congress  for  opposing  the  war  in  the  in- 
terest of  justice  to  both  black  and  white.  Those  whose 
friendship  I  valued  much  were  not  unfriendly.  "  We 
know  you  are  sincere  and  your  heart  right,  but  we  have 
a  country  now,  we  glory  in  the  Union  we  once  wished  to 
dissolve,  we  worship  what  we  had  burned,  and  we  see 
that  you  are  following  a  delusion ! "  Such  in  substance 
was  what  my  old  anti-slavery  comrades  said.  That  I  had 
committed  a  mistake  in  supposing  that  they  would  not  sup- 
port a  war  merely  for  the  sake  of  a  political  or  territorial 
Union  it  was  easy  to  confess.  For  the  sake  of  my  family 
I  bent  before  the  storm.  But  the  work  of  the  lurid  flash 
that  came  out  of  me  could  not  be  undone.  I  was  driven 
—  yes,  driven  —  by  every  force  of  mind  and  heart  into 


26  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

myself.  I  was  compelled  to  the  painful  and  humiliating 
certainty  that  the  whole  world  was  wrong.  My  heart  and 
mind  had  no  relation  to  a  Union  that  required  a  half  mil- 
lion human  sacrifices  for  its  continuance.  My  country 
then  was  not  of  this  world,  nor  yet  of  any  heavenly  world. 

What  then  could  I  do  but  set  me  down  in  London  and 
from  "  the  little  chapel  in  my  own  mind  "  preach  to  the 
large  chapel  of  reasoning  and  humane  men  and  women 
who  desired  my  ministry  ? 

There  little  by  little  the  hope  —  almost  the  faith  — 
grew  that  the  peaceful  and  happy  country  was  forming 
on  earth.  But  along  with  this  came  an  awakened  interest 
in  the  Past,  in  the  dreams  that  led  the  old  voyagers,  as 
sung  by  Tennyson  in  "  Ulysses,"  the  colonists  who  built 
up  happy  communities  before  the  revolutionary  demon 
had  taken  possession  of  the  world.  My  own  native  State, 
Virginia,  was  a  land  of  old  romances,  one  of  which  in- 
spired me  to  imagine  the  tale  which  opens  my  Christmas 
volume, "  A  Necklace  of  Stories  "  (1880).  The  tale  entitled 
"The  Invisible  Queen"  relates  to  the  lost  Virginia  col- 
ony (1587-1591),  and  to  Virginia  Dare,  the  first  English 
child  born  in  America  (August  18, 1587).  Seven  English 
youths  yachting  in  that  region  are  led  blindfold  by 
merry  Indian  maidens  from  their  yacht,  The  Fancy, 
to  the  interior  of  an  island,  —  "Croatan,"  —  and  find 
there  an  ideal  city  founded  by  Eleanor  Dare  and  her 
daughter  Virginia,  —  the  only  persons  (according  to  my 
tale)  preserved  by  the  Indians  when  they  destroyed 
the  colony  of  1589.1  The  letters  C  R  O  (supposed  to 
mean  Croatan)  carved  on  a  post,  had  been  the  only  sign 
left  in  the  perished  English  settlement  nearly  three  hun- 

1  The  coincidence  of  my  plot  and  some  details  with  Mr.  Rider  Haggard's 
She  (1886)  is  close  enough  to  constitute  one  of  the  curiosities  of  literature. 


THE   ABBE'S   DREAM  27 

dred  and  fifty  years  before  the  seven  youths  were  led  to 
the  beautiful  city  of  the  same  name.  They  lived  there 
for  a  time  in  perfect  happiness,  but  duties  carried  them 
back.  The  years  bring  them  family  and  fame,  but  in  each 
household,  and  each  heart  of  wife  and  child,  there  is  a 
legend  and  dream  of  the  happy  island.  And  finally  the 
coast-steamer,  The  Iron  City,  starts  out  from  Baltimore 
with  an  English  party  —  the  seven  and  their  wives  and 
children — to  visit  Croatan.  For  days  they  explore  island 
after  island,  but  the  poor  and  ragged  people  on  them 
never  heard  of  any  Croatan  and  say  there  have  been  no 
Indians  in  that  region  for  a  hundred  years. 

Some  excursionists  in  the  Yellowstone  Park  remarked 
a  Catholic  abbe  who  was  an  indefatigable  sight-seer, 
and  attracted  every  one  by  his  sociability  and  intelligence. 
Sir  Norman  Lockyer,  I  think,  was  along,  and  expressed 
his  pleasure  at  meeting  an  abbe"  so  observant  and  joy- 
ous. The  Catholic  confided  to  him  a  curious  dream :  he 
had  died,  and  found  himself  at  the  gate  of  heaven ;  when 
about  to  ask  admission  the  sad  reflection  came  to  him 
that  he  had  hardly  seen  anything  of  the  country  in  which 
he  had  been  living.  The  thought  awakened  him,  and  he 
at  once  packed  his  trunk. 

My  own  reflection,  on  the  eve  of  visiting  other  hemi- 
spheres, was  that  even  naturally  observant  eyes  can  see 
in  youth  but  little  of  what  is  around  them,  because  they 
are  set  to  study  dead  languages  and  nations,  and  set  to 
dreaming  of  the  gates  of  Heaven.  When  I  first  met 
Sir  Charles  Lyell  and  said  something  about  coming  to 
see  the  Old  World,  he  said  it  might  yet  be  shown  that 
America  is  the  oldest  world.  He  meant  geologically,  but 
in  after  years,  reading  traditions  of  the  Vikings  and  Vin- 
land,  and  the  letters  of  Columbus,  I  queried  whether 


28  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Eden,  so  far  as  actual,  was  not  veritably  in  my  native 
region  where  my  tale  had  fixed  the  Indian  Utopia.  For 
Eden  is  where  love  and  innocency  and  peace  are.  The 
natives  whom  Columbus  found  were,  as  he  wrote,  "  a  lov- 
ing uncovetous  people,  so  docile  in  all  things  that  I  as- 
sure your  Highness  that  I  believe  in  all  the  world  there 
is  not  a  better  people  or  a  better  country ;  they  love  their 
neighbours  as  themselves,  and  they  have  the  sweetest  and 
gentlest  way  of  talking  in  the  world,  and  always  with  a 
smile."  This  in  Hispaniola.  At  San  Salvador  "  they  had 
much  friendship  for  us,"  "  they  neither  carried  arms  nor 
understood  such  things,"  "  they  are  of  good  understand- 
ing." At  the  Rio  de  Mares  the  houses  "  made  of  palm 
branches  were  very  beautiful,"  "  and  within  were  very 
clean,  and  their  fittings  in  good  taste."  Elsewhere  — 
"These  Indians  are  very  gentle,  without  knowing  what 
evil  is,  neither  killing  nor  stealing." 

"  I  believe,"  writes  Columbus  again,  "  they  would  eas- 
ily be  converted  to  Christianity,  for  it  appeared  to  me 
they  had  no  creed."  But,  alas,  Columbus  had  no  idea  of 
judging  trees  by  their  moral  fruits.  He  was  seeking  the 
enchanted  land  of  Prester  John  —  Presbyter  John,  i.  e. 
aged  John,  tarrying  till  the  Lord  come,  in  a  palace  of  un- 
imaginable splendour.  Some  mediaeval  wag  had  hoaxed 
the  world  with  a  letter  to  the  PopB  signed  by  this  fictitious 
John  describing  his  throne  of  diamonds  in  the  land  of  gold, 
surrounded  by  mirrors,  in  which  he  could  see  what  was 
being  done  in  every  part  of  the  globe.  This  letter  was 
taken  seriously,  and  to  the  mythical  monarch  Columbus  ac- 
tually brought  a  letter  of  introduction  penned  by  the  hand 
of  Queen  Isabella.  The  name  of  Prester  John  had  disap- 
peared before  the  title  Honibre  de  tamano,  "the  great 
man,"  which  survives  in  the  St.  Tammany  of  New  York. 


THE   FIRST  CHURCH   IN   AMERICA         29 

This  St.  Tammany,  on  whom  had  so  strangely  fallen 
the  mantle  of  the  beloved  disciple,  was  as  an  individual 
fabulous,  but  he  was  the  typical  representative  of  all  that 
gentleness  and  humanity  of  the  races  which  were  found 
not  only  by  Columbus  but  by  the  first  settlers  of  Vir- 
ginia. The  tragedies  which  Columbus  initiated  in  the 
Southern  islands,  by  turning  the  gentle  natives  into  gold 
by  enslaving  them  under  the  pretext  of  making  them 
Christians,  had  spread  terror  all  along  the  coast,  and  to 
that  inhumanity  were  due  the  tragical  events  which  oc- 
curred in  this  same  Virginia  neighbourhood  where  these 
notes  were  made. 

I  am  convinced  that  Maryland  was  named  after  the 
mother  of  Jesus  by  the  Spaniards  who  first  discovered 
the  Chesapeake  and  named  it  the  Bay  of  Santa  Maria ; 
and  that  Virginia  was  not  named  after  the  '  virgin ' 
Queen  Elizabeth,  but  for  the  Virgin  Mary.  The  first 
church  built  in  our  country  was  "  the  log  chapel  on  the 
Rappahannock,"  about  1572.  The  Indian  name  for  Vir- 
ginia was  lacan,  and  the  chapel  was  dedicated  to  "  La 
Madre  de  Dios  de  lacan."  It  may  have  stood  where  our 
little  town  of  Falmouth  now  stands,  for  Father  Segura 
and  his  little  company  of  priests  and  five  native  converts 
journeyed  up  the  Rappahannock  to  a  village,  and  prob- 
ably the  largest  on  the  river  was  near  the  falls.  One  of 
the  "  converts,"  a  brother  of  the  king  of  lacan,  christened 
Don  Luis  de  Velasco,  had  been  carried  off  years  before 
to  Spain  (1566).  It  looks  as  if  this  conversion  had  been 
under  coercion,  for  soon  after  his  return  as  a  missionary 
Don  Luis  resumed  his  aboriginal  character:  the  entire 
mission  was  exterminated,  —  in  Catholic  tradition  massa- 
cred,—  except  one  native  (Cuban)  convert,  christened 
Alphonsus,  on  whose  evidence  eight  of  the  lacans  were 


30  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

hanged  by  Menendez  to  the  yardarm  some  years  later.  It 
is  said  that  there  still  exists  in  some  sacristy  in  Havana 
the  cross  which  alone  was  saved  from  the  log  chapel. 

In  the  more  cruel  time  of  Anglo-Saxon  colonization  in 
Virginia  the  only  living  Madonna  was  the  Indian  princess 
called  Pokahuntas,  who  repeatedly  rescued  the  whites  from 
the  retribution  richly  deserved.  One  of  my  uncles,  John 
Moncure  of  Carmora,  named  a  son  Powhatan,  and  wished 
to  name  a  daughter  Pokahuntas,  —  this  not  being  done 
because  the  name  was  found  to  be  an  epithet  invented  by 
the  whites,  the  real  name  being  Amonate.  I  tried  to  track 
this  exquisite  lady  in  all  of  the  records  of  the  time  and 
gradually  reached  the  painful  and  humiliating  conclusion 
that  she  was  not  the  exceptional  personage  she  was  gener- 
ally supposed  to  be,  but  the  fair  type  of  a  gentle  and 
intelligent  as  well  as  comely  and  shapely  race.  The  people 
found  by  Columbus  in  Cuba  and  by  Menendez  in  Florida 
and  elsewhere  were  similarly  kind  and  attractive.  These 
happy  and  hospitable  peoples  have  been  steadily  destroyed 
by  our  white  race,  which  now  judges  the  American  abori- 
gines by  the  red  man  of  to-day.  But  this  contemporary 
red  man  is  not  the  creation  of  nature  but  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  and  the  Spaniard,  who  by  their  massacres  left  the 
only  survivor  in  this  silent,  grim,  irreconcilable  figure. 
He  is  the  monument  of  the  innumerable  tribes  that  have 
perished,  but  who  might  have  contributed  to  our  English 
blood  an  element  of  geniality  and  unselfishness  which 
would  have  made  the  American  something  better  than  a 
reproduction  of  the  Englishman.  As  it  is,  we  are  like 
our  fathers,  going  through  the  world  turning  once  happy 
islands  and  coasts  into  cemeteries  and  calling  it  civiliza- 
tion and  christianization. 

My  pilgrimages  in  Virginia  were  to  historic  spots  in 


31 

which  I  had  taken  little  interest  in  boyhood  and  after- 
wards was  too  deeply  in  the  current  of  affairs  to  think  of, 
until  now  turned  fifty.  I  strolled  over  the  farm  associated 
with  legends  of  Washington's  childhood,  which  really  re- 
port with  more  veracity  the  childhood  of  his  country.  I 
visited  the  old  homestead  Chatham,  so  named  by  Wash- 
ington's friend  William  Fitzhugh  in  honour  of  the  earl 
who  had  so  eloquently  defended  the  rights  of  the  Ameri- 
cans. Kenmore,  where  Colonel  Fielding  Lewis  lived, 
his  wife  being  Washington's  sister,  and  the  home  near 
by  where  Washington's  mother  dwelt  in  her  last  years, 
were  in  fair  condition,  but  the  beautiful  foliage  in  which 
they  were  embowered  had  largely  disappeared.  The 
monument  to  Washington's  mother  was  still  the  pictur- 
esque feature  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  in  my  eyes  the 
more  worthy  of  preservation  because  it  was  scarred  all 
over  by  the  shot  and  shell  which  had  raged  around  it  near 
ninety  years  after  the  old  lady's  body  was  there  laid. 

A  house  in  Fredericksburg  gained  during  the  Revolu- 
tion the  name  "  The  Sentry  Box."  It  was  the  residence 
of  General  Weedon  who  distinguished  himself  in  the  bat- 
tle of  Trenton,  and  was  left  by  Washington  in  charge  of 
the  Hessians.  He  was  not  therefore  in  the  struggle  that 
ensued  at  Princeton,  where  his  brother-in-law,  General 
Hugh  Mercer,  fell.  For  a  good  many  years  after  the  war 
was  over  the  officers  of  this  region,  including  General 
Washington,  used  to  enjoy  a  Christmas  Night  revel  in 
General  Weedon's  "  Sentry  Box."  They  used  to  dress  up 
two  little  negroes  as  sergeants  on  guard  at  the  door,  and 
the  colored  waiters  were  in  uniform.  Judge  Beverly  R. 
Wellford,  belonging  to  a  historic  family  of  Fredericks- 
burg,  gave  me  the  song  —  probably  composed  by  Weedon 
—  which  was  always  sung  by  these  old  comrades. 


32  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

On  Christmas  Day  in  Seventy-six 
Our  ragged  troops  with  bay'nets  fixt 

For  Trenton  marched  away; 
The  Delaware  ice,  the  boats  below, 
The  light  obscured  by  hail  and  snow, 

But  no  sign  of  dismay. 

Our  object  was  the  Hessian  band 
That  dare  invade  fair  Freedom's  land 

And  quarter  in  that  place: 
Great  Washington,  he  led  us  on 
With  ensigns  streaming  with  renown, 

Which  ne'er  had  known  disgrace. 

In  silent  march  we  spend  the  night, 
Each  soldier  panting  for  the  fight, 

Though  quite  benumbed  with  frost: 
Greene  on  the  left  at  six  began, 
The  right  was  with  brave  Sullivan, 

Who  in  battle  no  time  lost. 

Their  pickets  stormed,  the  alarm  was  spread 
That  rebels  risen  from  the  dead 

Were  marching  into  town; 
Some  scampered  here,  some  scampered  there, 
And  some  for  action  did  prepare  — 

But  soon  their  arms  laid  down. 

Twelve  hundred  servile  miscreants 
With  all  their  colours,  guns,  and  tents 

Were  trophies  of  the  day: 
The  frolic  o'er,  the  bright  canteen 
In  centre,  front,  and  rear  was  seen, 

Driving  fatigue  away. 

And,  brothers  of  the  cause  !  let 's  sing 
Our  safe  deliverance  from  a  King 

Who  strove  to  extend  his  sway; 


MARY   WASHINGTON  33 

And  life  you  know  is  but  a  span, 
Let 's  touch  the  tankard  while  we  can 
In  memory  of  the  Day  ! l 

Ah,  how  small  appears  that  once  grand  "  Sentry  Box ! " 
How  strange  in  the  distance  appears  to  me  that  school- 
boy bearing  my  name  who  once  strolled  with  awe  along 
this  pretty  riverside  street  and  dreamed  of  the  giants  that 
peopled  Fredericksburg  in  Seventy-six  ! 

My  brother  Richard,  a  diligent  collector  of  Virginia 
traditions  and  documents,  gave  me  a  letter  of  Mary 
Washington  to  her  son  John  Augustine  Washington  in 
Westmoreland,  Virginia,  undated  but  evidently  written 
during  the  Revolution,  in  which  she  says :  "  I  am  a  going 
fast,  and  it,  the  time,  is  hard.  I  am  borrowing  a  little 
Cornn  —  no  Cornn  in  the  Cornn  house.  I  never  lived  soe 
poore  in  my  life.  Was  it  not  for  Mr.  French  and  your 
sister  Lewis  I  should  be  almost  starved,  but  I  am  like  an 
old  almanack  quite  out  of  date.  Give  my  love  to  Mrs. 
Washington  —  all  the  family.  I  am  dear  Johnne  your 
loving  and  affectionate  Mother."  Apart  from  this  note 
there  were  traditions  which  convinced  my  brother  that 
during  that  war  Washington's  mother  was  what  was  then 
called  a  "Tory,"  and  had  no  sympathy  with  the  cause 
for  which  her  famous  son  was  contending.  Out  there  be- 
side her  monument  I  pondered  the  matter,  and  also  re- 
membered certain  things  that  I  had  heard  from  venerable 
friends  and  relatives  concerning  excellent  Virginians  who 
had  suffered  because  they  would  not  fight  against  the  Brit- 
ish crown,  which  as  official  men  they  had  sworn  to  support. 

1  1905.  If  the  shades  of  these  merry  comrades  could  revisit  the  earth, 
they  would  wonder  at  Washington  City,  and  most  of  all  perhaps  at  seeing 
there  a  statue  of  the  man  really  guilty  of  the  Hessian  invasion,  the  only 
monarch  who  to  the  last  refused  to  recognize  American  Independence,  — 
Frederick  the  Great. 


34  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

I  did  not  at  that  time  know  much  of  the  seamy  side  of  the 
American  Revolution,  but  I  knew  enough  of  the  mean- 
nesses and  injustices,  as  well  as  of  the  horrors  of  war,  to 
conceive  a  misgiving  concerning  the  heroics  which  in  most 
minds  supplied  the  place  of  exact  knowledge  about  that 
struggle.  It  brought  not  only  to  Washington's  mother 
but  to  many  of  the  best  families  just  such  distress  as  the 
Union  war  brought,  —  a  distress  to  the  conquerors  and 
conquered  alike. 

And  the  two  wars  were  branches  of  the  same  poison- 
ous tree.  What  was  it  that  in  1776  enabled  two  col- 
onies —  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  —  to  set  aside  the 
anti-slavery  feeling  of  eleven  colonies,  and  compel  Jeffer- 
son to  cancel  the  denunciation  of  slavery  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  ?  War.  It  was  necessary  for  victory 
that  the  colonies  should  be  united ;  as  Franklin  said,  "  We 
must  all  hang  together  or  all  hang  separately."  It  was 
equally  necessary  after  the  victory  that  a  union  of  all  the 
colonies  should  be  formed  to  prevent  defeated  and  hu- 
miliated England  from  reconquering  them  singly,  and  the 
compulsory  cancelling  mark  reappeared  in  the  concessions 
to  slavery  in  the  Constitution.  It  was  that  black  mark 
persistent  in  the  war  between  North  and  South  which 
slew  half  a  million. 

But  little  is  told  by  the  mere  figures.  The  uniforms 
hid  individual  hearts  and  minds,  and  those  who  survive 
can  never  be  the  same.  The  moral  and  psychological 
effects  of  a  war  are  immeasurable,  and  no  one  escapes 
them,  not  even  those  unborn  when  the  visible  war  oc- 
curred. I  was  three  thousand  miles  away  from  the  Union 
War,  in  a  beautiful  English  homestead,  when  a  stroke 
came  from  across  the  sea  which  not  only  at  once  changed 
my  whole  outer  life  but  ultimately  my  inner  vision. 


AN   OMNIPOTENT  WILL  35 

The  old  people  in  Virginia  were  kneeling,  and  some 
heads  prematurely  grey  were  bent  to  the  God  of  their 
fathers.  Some  humiliation  of  defeat  was  in  their  hearts, 
—  perhaps  in  those  who  had  been  soldiers  of  the  Confeder- 
acy some  bitterness, —  so  that  I  had  to  use  tact  in  speaking 
of  the  past.  Were  they  kneeling  to  exactly  the  same  God 
whom  they  had  invoked  during  the  war?  How  few  are 
they  who  in  using  the  word  "  God  "  realize  that  in  that 
collectivist  term  are  included  many  various  and  some  con- 
trarious  ideals.  The  only  point  in  which  they  unite  is 
an  omnipotent  Will.  Among  the  papers  of  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  found  this  note  written  in  September,  1862, 
a  fearful  moment  of  the  war :  — 

The  will  of  God  prevails.  In  great  contests  each  party 
claims  to  act  in  accordance  with  the  will  of  God.  Both 
may  be,  and  one  must  be,  wrong.  God  cannot  be  for  and 
against  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time.  In  the  present 
civil  war  it  is  quite  possible  that  God's  purpose  is  some- 
thing different  from  the  purpose  of  either  party,  and  yet 
[that]  the  human  instrumentalities,  working  just  as  they 
do,  are  of  the  best  adaptation  to  effect  his  purpose.  I  am 
almost  ready  to  say  that  this  is  probably  true ;  that  God 
wills  this  contest,  and  wills  that  it  shall  not  end  yet.  By 
his  mere  great  power  on  the  minds  of  the  now  contestants 
he  could  have  either  saved  or  destroyed  the  Union  without 
a  human  contest.  Yet  the  contest  began.  And  having 
begun,  he  could  give  the  final  victory  to  either  side  any 
day.  Yet  the  contest  proceeds. 

Even  the  historian  Froude,  in  his  rectorial  address  at 
St.  Andrews  used  the  phrase  "  God  of  Battles."  In  that 
form  the  biblical  "  God  of  Hosts"  (that  is,  the  stars  of 
heaven)  is  anglicized  into  a  terrestrial  war-god  who  makes 
virtual  atheism  the  only  hope  of  peace  on  earth. 

Well,  the  corn  was  waving  luxuriantly  on  the  Virginia 
battlefields,  the  people  were  bravely  endeavouring  to 


36  MY  PILGRIMAGE; 

repair  their  losses ;  the  negroes  gave  me  good  reports  of 
their  condition ;  and  my  own  reception  and  welcome  in 
the  old  home  helped  no  doubt  to  incline  me  towards  the 
optimistic  view.  It  was  a  pure  happiness  to  meet  again 
my  parents,  and  to  find  in  them  no  distress  about  my 
heresies ;  they  were  even  reading  my  "  Sacred  Anthology  " 
with  satisfaction.  In  the  old  Methodist  church  I  saw  the 
silken  white  head  of  my  father  bent  in  prayer  —  in  which 
I  was  surely  thought  of  —  and  when  next  day  the  hour  of 
my  departure  came  he  had  disappeared.  Courageous  in 
everything  else,  he  could  not  face  the  parting  with  one  he 
loved.  I  never  saw  him  again. 


CHAPTER  H 

A  witch  hunt  at  Washington  —  Yellow  Springs,  Ohio  —  Cincinnati  — 
Judge  Hoadly  —  Journey  to  Salt  Lake  City  —  John  W.  Young  —  Mor- 
monism  and  human  nature  —  Elder  Penrose  as  a  preacher  —  Mormon 
wives  and  Mormon  husbands  —  The  fate  of  repudiated  wives. 

AT  Washington  I  had  a  strange  witch  hunt !  James 
Parker,  once  the  body-servant  of  my  father,  —  to 
remain  with  whom  he  had  actually  fled  from  freedom  with 
the  Northern  troops  to  the  Confederate  lines, — had  set- 
tled with  his  family  in  Washington.  He  had  a  beautiful 
mulatto  daughter  who  was  employed  by  the  wife  of  a 
high  government  official  as  her  maid,  but  shortly  before  my 
arrival  the  girl  (about  nineteen)  began  to  waste  away. 
Her  mistress  was  much  attached  to  her,  and  the  best 
physicians  were  consulted,  but  none  could  explain  the  ail- 
ment that  was  apparently  carrying  her  to  the  grave. 
When  I  called  on  her  she  barely  raised  her  head,  saying, 
"  I  am  sorry  for  you  to  see  me  in  this  condition."  My 
effort  to  get  from  her  some  explanation  was  fruitless. 
When  I  asked  her  if  she  was  in  love  she  shook  her  head, 
and  it  was  the  same  when  I  suggested  religious  trouble. 
But  I  saw  that  the  ailment  was  mental,  and  on  question- 
ing her  father  closely  he  admitted,  with  some  shame,  that 
his  daughter  once  said  to  him  that  she  feared  she  was  be- 
witched. With  that  clue  I  consulted  her  employer,  and  a 
searching  investigation  revealed  a  strange  situation.  The 
black  cook,  having  become  jealous  of  their  mistress's  devo- 
tion to  the  mulatto  maid,  determined  to  frighten  her  away. 
Knowing  that  the  girl  was  sensitive  and  imaginative,  she 


38  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

sought  to  make  her  believe  herself  bewitched,  and  one 
morning  the  maid  in  making  up  her  bed  found  beneath 
the  mattress  at  each  corner  some  bags  of  powdered  glass, 
with  scrawled  letters  and  figures.  The  cook  had  kept  her 
face  of  kindness,  and  on  seeing  the  charms  affected  pity 
and  said  their  fatal  influence  could  not  be  escaped  but  by 
flight.  The  poor  maid  was  ashamed  to  tell  her  mistress, 
and  could  not  bear  to  leave  her,  and  was  gradually  pros- 
trated by  terror.  The  cook  being  at  once  dismissed,  the 
girl  was  soothed  and  restored  by  the  affection  of  her  mis- 
tress, and  all  went  well. 

This  family  was  one  that  I  had  settled  at  Yellow 
Springs,  Ohio,  in  1862.  My  dear  friend,  Mrs.  Julia  Law- 
rence, who  resided  there,  had  long  seen  after  them  for  me, 
and  when  I  met  her  on  my  westward  journey,  reported 
that  though  many  had  settled  in  other  towns,  those  who 
remained  were  doing  well. 

In  Cincinnati  there  was  excitement  about  an  approach- 
ing gubernatorial  election.  The  quietest  place  I  found 
there  was  the  home  of  the  Democratic  candidate,  Judge 
Hoadly,  whose  guest  I  was  during  my  stay.  His  residence 
(on  Walnut  Hills)  had  shortly  before  been  struck  by 
lightning,  which  had  penetrated  solely  to  the  drawing- 
room,  which  contained  admirable  works  by  Turner,  Corot, 
Courbet,  Frere,  and  others,  but  the  thunderbolt  had  so 
well  conducted  itself  that  nothing  whatever  was  touched 
except  the  gilded  cornice,  which  was  changed  to  a  sort  of 
gilt-toothed  comb.  This  heavenly  decoration  had  been 
preserved.  In  1857  Hoadly  had  left  his  party  and  coop- 
erated with  the  Republicans  against  slavery;  that  issue 
settled,  the  Democrats  had  now  summoned  him  to  be  their 
leader.  Hoadly  was  elected,  and  it  was  under  his  admir- 
able administration  that  the  Cincinnati  jail  was  success- 


JUDGE  HOADLY  39 

fully  defended  against  a  mob  of  lynchers,  which  endeav- 
oured to  seize  and  murder  a  negro  youth  awaiting  trial 
for  murder. 

I  had  some  fear  of  my  dear  and  intimate  friend  Judge 
Hoadly  entering  upon  a  political  career.  As  a  judge  he 
had  shown  such  ability  that  he  really  belonged  to  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court.  But  the  Democrats  had 
need  of  him ;  they  had  votes  enough  to  elect  their  candi- 
date if  they  could  find  an  eminent  leader,  but  nothing 
succeeds  like  success,  and  although  the  Republican  party 
had  lost  many  virtues  it  had  never  parted  from  that  of 
success.  Hoadly  was  a  Democrat  on  philosophical  princi- 
ples ;  he  believed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and 
was  such  a  Jeffersonian  that  when  I  asked  permission  to 
dedicate  to  him  my  "  Life  of  Paine,"  whom  he  placed  next 
to  Jefferson,  he  consented,  but  with  some  anxiety  lest  I 
should  repeat  the  exposure  of  Jefferson's  duplicity  given 
in  my  work  on  Edmund  Randolph. 

I  made  the  most  of  this  opportunity  to  obtain  light  on 
the  subjects  I  had  dealt  with  in  my  little  book  "  Republi- 
can Superstitions."  Judge  Hoadly  inclined  to  think  that 
Paine,  Franklin,  and  Jefferson  were  mistaken  in  oppos- 
ing bicameralism  in  Congress.  The  Union  being  by  the 
judge's  theory  a  federation  of  nations,  they  needed  a 
federal  assembly  in  addition  to  a  popular  one,  but  he  did 
not  deny  the  anomaly  I  pointed  out,  that  the  Senate  — 
the  House  of  these  Nations  (States)  —  should  have  a 
power  over  the  purse  of  the  people  unknown  to  the  House 
of  Lords.  Though  an  advocate  of  free-trade,  always  pre- 
vented by  the  Senate,  the  judge  considered  the  chief 
defect  of  the  Constitution  to  be  in  the  words  of  its  pre- 
amble —  "  general  welfare."  In  urging  Congress  and  the 
President  to  eradicate  slavery  when  it  was  trying  to 


40  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

destroy  the  Union,  on  the  ground  that  the  Constitution 
ordered  them  to  "  provide  for  the  general  welfare,"  few 
of  us  reflected  that  the  phrase  was  double-edged  and 
might  be  used  to  interfere  with  local  self-government  in 
the  future  or  even  with  any  individual  liberty  which  a 
perhaps  momentary  majority  of  congressmen  considered 
detrimental  to  the  "  general  welfare."  When  I  quoted  this 
clause  in  England,  as  justifiying  some  policy  of  Congress, 
an  able  writer  in  the  "  Pall  Mall  Gazette,"  evidently  a 
learned  jurist,  answered  that  the  phrase  was  meant  to  ex- 
clude the  federal  government  from  interfering  with  state 
or  municipal  interests  and  to  restrict  it  to  the  general 
(e.  g.  foreign  or  territorial)  interests  as  distinguished  from 
those  of  the  States.  This  reply  led  me  to  examine  the 
debates  of  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  1787,  but  I 
was  unable  to  discover  that  the  phrase  "general  welfare  " 
was  discussed  at  all  or  introduced  in  that  convention. 

The  steady  encroachment  of  the  federal  government 
on  personal  liberty  and  on  religious  equality  is  traceable 
in  the  treatment  of  the  Mormons.  The  persecutions  origi- 
nally left  to  mobs  were  adopted  and  systematized  by  our 
"general  welfare"  rulers  at  Washington.  Although  poly- 
gamy appeared  to  me  as  the  outcome  of  an  extreme  bibli- 
cal letter-worship,  I  had  long  recognized,  with  some  of  the 
ablest  men  I  knew  in  London,  that  the  congressional  per- 
secution of  the  Mormon  Church  was  an  unconstitutional 
policy  animated  by  an  immoral  spirit  under  the  mask  of 
morality.  The  law  against  polygamy  had  been  worded  so 
that  a  man  might  maintain  as  many  women  as  he  pleased 
provided  they  were  not  conceded  the  dignity  and  legal 
protection  of  "  wives." 

I  looked  forward  with  dread  to  the  five  days  and  nights 
by  railway  needed  to  reach  Salt  Lake  City,  but  it  was 


JOHN  W.  YOUNG  41 

travelling  in  a  fine  hotel,  and  I  never  had  a  pleasanter 
journey.  This  was  partly  due  to  a  fellow  traveller,  John 
W.  Young,  son  of  the  famous  President  Brigham  Young. 
John  W.  Young  was  an  affable  man,  with  the  intelli- 
gence derived  from  the  university  of  life  and  experience. 
There  was  some  sternness  about  his  mouth,  but  his  eye 
was  genial  I  told  him  that  I  should  probably  use  pub- 
licly my  conversations  with  him.  He  held  in  his  hand  a 
book  on  Mormons  by  Philip  Robinson,  and  also  the  state- 
ments of  Judge  Jeremiah  Black.  I  freely  agreed  with  him 
that  there  was  much  in  human  nature  that  accorded  with 
polygamy  and  which  had  a  disastrous  development  in 
great  cities.  The  evolution  of  man,  in  conquering  the 
lands  and  seas  of  the  world,  his  life  in  camps  and  ports, 
had  tended  to  make  him  a  natural  polygamist.  Mr.  Young 
said,  "You  can't  go  contrary  to  man's  nature."  "But," 
I  answered,  "  man's  nature  is  only  half  the  human  nature 
in  the  world ;  there  is  the  nature  of  woman,  whom  all  the 
conditions  of  life  have  tended  to  make  monogamist.  Cir- 
cumstances in  some  regions  have  developed  other  instincts 
in  woman,  as  in  the  swarming  Asiatic  populations,  where 
she  finds  no  career  or  even  support  but  in  marriage,  and 
where  the  excessive  number  of  women  made  polygamy  a 
natural,  even  inevitable,  social  economy ;  but  these  condi- 
tions do  not  exist  in  the  West,  where  the  economic  advan- 
tages to  her  of  monogamy  have  developed  a  corresponding 
instinct."  Mr.  Young  said,  "  Woman  is  necessarily  the 
inferior  of  man.  There  are  religious  reasons  why  she 
should  be  the  one  to  surrender  her  feelings  in  that  respect." 
"  But  was  it  not  found  among  you  that  the  romance  of  life 
and  the  charm  of  the  relation  between  man  and  maid  were 
diminished  by  this  plurality  of  wives?  "  He  said,  "  Court- 
ship went  on  among  us  the  same  as  elsewhere.  I  believe 


42  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

in  love  but  not  infatuation.  Whatever  woman  may  sup- 
pose she  loses  by  being  one  among  other  wives  is  compen- 
sated in  a  greater  devotion  to  her  children,  for  in  our 
system  the  maternal  feelings  are  regarded  as  supreme : 
those  feelings  are  very  early  developed,  and  form  the  chief 
earthly  happiness  of  women.  They  also  increase  the  affec- 
tion of  man,  who  cannot  fail  to  feel  a  deep  tenderness  for 
the  mother  of  his  children.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
in  our  faith  this  feeling  concerning  the  production  of  the 
race  is  a  profoundly  religious  feeling,  and  brings  a  happi- 
ness not  realized  where  the  relations  are  merely  worldly." 
I  asked  him  whether,  in  the  growth  of  society  in  Utah,  it 
was  not  found  that  there  were  not  enough  wives  for  all ; 
and  was  not  this  to  some  extent  a  reason  for  the  hostility 
of  the  "  Gentiles."  He  replied,  "  The  men  who  settle  in 
this  region  are  largely  adventurers ;  they  do  not  wish  to 
settle  down  in  permanent  homes;  they  no  doubt  desire 
our  women,  but  they  are  not  generally  of  the  marrying 
kind."  He  dwelt  largely  upon  the  good  order  and  free- 
dom from  crime  which  had  always  marked  their  settle- 
ment, even  though  many  outsiders  had  come  among  them. 
Entering  Salt  Lake  City  on  a  beautiful  summer  day,  I 
could  realize  how  its  site  had  appeared  to  the  first  Mor- 
mon pilgrims  a  land  of  Beulah.  Even  before  cultivation  it 
blossomed  like  a  rose  amid  the  mountains.  William  Godbe, 
whom  I  had  met  in  London,  and  his  wife  had  invited  me 
to  be  their  guest,  and  arranged  a  Sunday  afternoon  lec- 
ture for  me  in  the  Opera  House.  I  found  the  Mormons 
were  by  no  means  the  vulgar  people  some  supposed  them, 
nor  the  puritanical  sectarians  I  had  imagined  them,  but 
the  Salt  Lake  aristocracy.  In  driving  about  the  neighbour- 
hood I  met  a  company  of  young  ladies  with  fine  horses 
and  fashionable  riding-habits :  all  Mormons.  At  the  bath- 


A   MORMON   SERMON  43 

ing  beach  many  merry  ladies  in  gay  costumes  were  swim- 
ing  :  nearly  all  Mormons.  In  the  Opera  House  Ada  Rehan 
delighted  a  large  audience  by  her  acting  in  "  Article  47," 
and  I  remarked  the  beauty  and  elegance  of  the  young 
ladies :  mostly  Mormons.  My  lecture  in  the  same  house 
was  attended  by  a  fine  audience,  two  thirds  being  Mormon 
families,  quite  as  well  dressed  and  intelligent  as  the  fami- 
lies of  other  regions. 

On  Sunday  morning  in  the  finely  festooned  Tabernacle 
the  crowd,  more  than  ten  thousand,  was  made  up  of  people 
gathered  from  many  lands,  and  some  of  the  devout  ap- 
peared more  rustic  than  those  seen  in  the  theatre.  But 
here  I  remarked  an  old-fashioned  simplicity  somewhat  like 
that  of  Methodist  meetings  in  the  South.  It  was  very  hot, 
and  occasionally  during  the  sermon  some  one  would  go  for 
a  drink  to  one  of  the  water  buckets  provided  at  each  door. 
The  scene  was  unique.  There  was  an  organ,  stringed  in- 
struments, and  admirable  choir:  but  in  two  hymns  the 
multitude  joined,  and  the  fervent  singing  of  so  many 
voices  was  as  impressive  as  the  refrain  of  the  people  re- 
sponding to  the  choir  in  St.  Peter's  at  Rome.  The  air  was 
cooled  by  a  large  fountain  playing  in  the  centre  of  the 
building. 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  the  sermon  ?  It  was  given  by 
Elder  Penrose,  editor  of  the  "  Deseret  News."  He  stands 
in  my  memory  as  a  rather  tall  and  lank  figure,  with  small 
head  and  well-chiselled  features,  a  large  grey  eye,  and  a 
voice  of  wonderful  flexibility — even  his  low  tones  reaching 
me  distinctly  in  the  middle  of  the  Coliseum-like  edifice. 
He  took  no  text  and  spoke  without  notes,  without  hesita- 
tion, and  with  little  gesture  except  in  a  few  dramatic 
passages.  I  was  astonished  by  the  ability  of  the  sermon, 
which  lasted  an  hour  and  was  listened  to  with  that  deep 


44  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

attention  which  was  so  impressive  in  Plymouth  Church 
when  Beecher  preached.  I  doubt  not  that  if  this  Mormon 
preacher  had  been  a  Congregationalist  he  would  have  had 
national  distinction.  He  was,  however,  in  his  Tabernacle 
freer  than  Beecher  in  Plymouth  Church,  having  no  com- 
punction in  occasionally  (though  rarely)  raising  the  loud 
laughter  that  Beecher  generally  reserved  for  the  lecture 
hall.  It  was  a  complete  doctrinal  discourse.  After  a  care- 
ful account  of  the  patriarchs  and  their  wives,  he  quoted 
the  promise  of  Jesus  that  "many  shall  come  from  the 
east  and  the  west,  and  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham  and 
Isaac  and  Jacob,  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven."  After  this 
he  looked  on  us  for  a  moment  with  solemn  silence,  then 
lifting  his  hand  with  an  aspect  of  despair,  expressed  his 
sympathy  for  the  immaculate  "  gentiles "  of  Salt  Lake ; 
"  for,"  he  said,  "  if  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  in 
heaven  their  wives  must  be  there  too ;  and  of  course  these 
sinless  men  who  declare  themselves  so  much  holier  than 
we  will  not  for  a  moment  remain  in  any  kingdom  of 
heaven  where  Abraham  is  seen  along  with  both  Sarah 
and  Keturah,  his  wives."  The  Elder  then  on  the  wide 
platform  gave  a  little  step  or  two  off,  indicating  the  op- 
ponents of  polygamy  rushing  off  in  horror  from  the  patri- 
archs with  whom  Jesus  said  his  disciples  would  sit.  There 
was  no  extravagance  in  this  or  the  Elder's  other  little  dra- 
mas, resorted  to  only  for  satirical  purposes.  His  hour  was 
occupied  mainly  with  a  vigorous  lawyer-like  argument 
for  his  system.  From  my  point  of  view  his  defence,  so 
far  as  it  was  biblical,  was  unanswerable.  I  was  not  sur- 
prised by  observing  in  the  pew  next  in  front  of  me  a  ma- 
tronly lady,  apparently  English,  with  her  three  youthful 
daughters,  becoming  nervous  as  quotation  after  quotation 
from  the  Bible  was  set  forth.  The  girls  listened  with  in- 


CONFERENCE   WITH  MORMONS          45 

tense  interest ;  the  mother  grew  fidgety  and  whispered  to 
them,  perhaps  a  proposition  to  leave ;  the  breathless  still- 
ness of  the  audience  would  have  made  flight  a  disturbance, 
and  the  matron  contented  herself  with  fanning  vigorously 
her  flushed  face. 

That  same  evening  I  met  in  Mr.  Godbe's  house  a  large 
company  of  Mormons,  invited  in  my  behalf.  There  was 
among  them  only  one  "gentile"  besides  myself  —  the 
witty  and  beautiful  wife  of  a  general  at  the  neighbouring 
Camp  Douglas.  I  was  acquainted  with  some  of  her  rela- 
tives, and  was  much  pleased  to  hear  her  experiences  and 
impressions  at  Salt  Lake  City.  Though  reared  in  ortho- 
doxy, she  told  me  that  in  arguing  with  Mormons  she  had 
long  ago  ceased  to  quote  Scripture.  "  If  I  appeal  to  the 
Bible  I  am  lost." 

Those  who  gathered  in  the  conference  were  Mormons 
friendly  to  some  kind  of  reform,  and  known  as  "  Godbe- 
ites."  I  gave  them  to  understand  that  my  chief  interest 
lay  in  their  experiences,  in  the  doctrines  that  had  led  them 
into  that  religion,  and  the  degree  of  spiritual  satisfaction 
they  had  found  in  it.  They  were  intelligent  people  of  some 
education;  they  were  not  "cranks,"  and  every  speaker 
had  to  be  taken  seriously.  In  one  thing  they  all  agreed, 
namely,  that  the  outer  world  was  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  any  individual  was  attracted  to  a  Mormon  church  by 
sensuality.  It  was  rather  the  ascetic  who  left  the  sensual- 
ism of  great  cities  and  undertook  the  burden  of  supporting 
a  number  of  wives  and  their  always  different  residences. 
They  had  one  and  all  been  attracted  by  the  patriarchal 
idea,  combined  with  the  early  Christian  communism ;  and 
although  each  person  who  spoke  realized  that  the  political 
situation  in  Utah  demanded  an  adaptation  of  the  system 
to  a  new  order,  and  the  relinquishment  of  polygamy,  their 


46  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

inner  spiritual  experiences  were  not  very  unlike  those  I 
remembered  in  Methodist  class  meetings. 

Some  of  the  personal  narratives  were  of  thrilling  inter- 
est, and  if  America  could  produce  a  George  Sand,  Salt 
Lake  would  become  a  classic  land  of  romance.  Some  of 
these  men  and  women  had  come  from  remote  parts  of  the 
world  where  they  had  suffered  poverty  and  been  brought 
up  in  ignorance ;  they  had  listened  to  the  tale  of  some  way- 
side missionary  concerning  the  far  land  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey,  temporal  and  spiritual ;  they  had  journeyed  as 
poor  pilgrims,  working  their  way  on  boats,  climbing  moun- 
tains, and  here  had  secured  comfortable  livelihood  and 
education  such  as  would  have  been  impossible  in  their 
native  countries. 

I  called  by  request  on  an  intelligent  and  handsome 
woman  who  had  been  one  of  several  plural  wives  from 
whom  a  well-to-do  Mormon  had  parted  in  obedience  to  the 
law.  She  was  residing  alone  in  a  pleasant  home,  and  told 
me  that  nothing  could  exceed  the  vigilance  and  kindness 
with  which  her  former  husband  and  the  one  wife  remain- 
ing to  him,  and  to  whom  he  was  perfectly  loyal,  supported 
her  and  the  two  other  wives  from  whom  he  had  separated. 
She  suffered  no  disrespect  in  the  community.  I  have  often 
thought  of  this  happy  woman  in  later  years  while  remark- 
ing the  little  consideration  given  by  Americans  in  their 
rage  against  polygamy  to  the  fate  of  repudiated  wives. 
A  story  is  told  of  an  American  missionary  on  a  savage 
island  who  managed  to  make  one  convert  but  refused 
to  baptize  him  because  he  had  four  wives.  But  one  day 
the  convert  came  and  said  he  had  now  but  one  wife. 
"  What  has  become  of  the  others  ?  "  asked  the  missionary. 
"I  ate  them,"  said  the  convert. 


CHAPTER  III 

San  Francisco  —  Red  Cross  Knights  —  Chinese  Joss  and  theatre  —  Voy- 
aging southward  —  Flying  fish  and  sunfish  —  Delia  Bacon  —  Shake- 
speare-Baconism  —  Honolulu  Sabbath  —  Captain  Cook  —  Legends  — 
Pele-Jehovah  —  Rev.  Titus  Coan  —  Samoans  —  Phenomena  —  New  Zea- 
land —  Dr.  Richard  Garnett  —  Pearl-divers  —  Our  floating  Utopia. 


AN  FRANCISCO  blossomed  with  banners.  Five  thou- 
sand  Knights  Templars  were  holding  their  "  Great  Tri- 
ennial "  there  ;  the  Palace  Hotel  was  sadly  congested,  and 
the  whole  city  swarmed  with  men  masquerading  in  badges, 
emblems,  sashes,  swords,  and  proudly  bearing  their  cross. 

When  one  looks  back  upon  the  ages  when  the  Knight 
Templar  was  a  real  figure,  and  every  sword  of  his  frater- 
nity stained  with  the  blood  that  made  the  Red  Cross,  it 
seemed  a  strange  thing  to  find  them  in  the  far  west  become 
pageantry.  There  are  penalties  on  taking  a  thing  out  of 
its  historic  habitat.  Here  was  the  cross,  radiant  on  caps 
that  called  for  bells,  not  only  decorating  Joss  houses,  but 
vile  dens,  even  labelling  the  whiskey  bottles. 

In  the  Chinese  temple  was  a  figure  of  the  Joss,  in  which 
I  recognized  a  degradation  of  Buddha.  On  his  altar  was  a 
dish  containing  vari-coloured  candies.  The  Chinese  idled 
around  without  reverence  or  solemnity.  One  told  me  that 
it  was  a  three-day  festival  or  mission.  At  the  end  of  three 
days  I  went  that  way  in  the  evening,  and  at  midnight 
witnessed  a  strange  procession.  The  street  for  two  hun- 
dred yards  was  fringed  with  fire  from  little  bundles  of  tow, 
at  which  hundreds  of  Chinese  were  lighting  candles,  much 
in  the  same  way  as  at  the  festival  of  torches  (Moccoli), 


48  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

which  closes  the  Carnival  at  Rome.  Between  these  multi- 
tudes marched  the  procession,  with  mechanical  noises 
meant  for  music.  Midway  in  the  procession  were  six  or 
seven  priests  in  red  garb,  and  behind  these,  uplifted  on 
the  shoulders  of  four  men,  was  the  Joss,  a  variegated 
dummy  with  uplifted  arms  which  startled  me.  It  was  like 
some  mockery  of  the  Pope  borne  in  on  shoulders  to  bless 
the  crowd  on  New  Year's  Day. 

I  found  the  Chinese  theatre  interesting.  An  attentive 
Chinaman  sat  in  my  box  and  undertook  to  explain  to  me 
the  plot.  The  interest  of  this  was  that  the  hero  and  his 
wife,  pursued  by  enemies,  find  that  they  cannot  both  be 
saved ;  he  prepares  to  die,  but  she  seizes  his  sword  and 
kills  herself.  But  he,  still  pursued,  cannot  be  saved  except 
by  touching  the  altar  of  the  Joss.  In  order,  however,  to 
seek  that  asylum  he  must  needs  become  a  priest ;  but  by 
becoming  a  priest  he  divorces  himself  from  his  other  wife, 
who  is  a  sister  of  the  Emperor.  This  highly  decorated  wife 
enters  the  temple  and  finds  her  husband  beside  the  altar, 
turned  priest.  With  loud  lamentations  she  tries  to  drag 
him  from  the  altar.  Failing  that,  she  tries  cajolery,  and 
we  witnessed  the  fascinations  of  a  Chinawoman  trying  to 
captivate  her  lord.  My  Chinaman  again  explains :  "  She 
velly  sorry.  She  will  have  him  back.  She  have  no  priest. 
She  cry  good  deal."  She  did  cry  a  good  deal,  but  while 
the  two  were  talking  the  curtain  came  down,  and  I  under- 
stood that  the  conclusion  would  come  next  evening.  At 
any  rate,  I  know  not  to  this  day  whether  the  heroine  coaxed 
her  lord  back  or  not,  or  whether  he  was  slain  by  his  pur- 
suers. But  it  was  an  ancient  story,  and  in  it  were  the 
ideas  of  asylum  and  of  priestly  celibacy. 

San  Francisco  struck  me  as  cosmopolitan,  occupying  a 
place  similar  to  that  of  ancient  Venice.  Along  its  streets 


SAN  FRANCISCO  49 

were  costumes  and  complexions  of  various  tribes,  appar- 
ently exciting  no  attention.  There  was  also  cosmopolitan- 
ism in  the  absence  of  any  blase  air  in  those  I  met, — 
refined  and  educated  people.  They  appeared  notably  free 
from  provincialism.  Mrs.  Norris  told  me  that  when  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson  was  there  she  asked  him  how  he  liked 
the  Yosemite;  he  replied,  "It  is  the  only  thing  I  have 
seen  out  here  that  comes  up  to  the  brag."  But  San  Fran- 
cisco travels  fast;  it  has  left  brag  behind  so  far  that 
nobody  advised  me  to  see  Yosemite. 

I  met  some  parted  from  in  boyhood  and  then  thought 
of  as  if  passing  into  another  world.  Mr.  Valentine  Pey- 
ton and  his  sister,  relatives  whose  parting  from  us  in 
Virginia  I  could  just  remember,  gave  me  a  grand  re- 
ception. He  had  founded  a  race  in  San  Francisco,  and  in 
his  house  I  was  surrounded  by  his  children  and  grand- 
children. Mrs.  Norris,  whom  I  had  known  in  my  student 
days  as  the  beautiful  young  wife  of  Thomas  Starr  King, 
entertained  me  in  her  mansion,  and  gave  me  an  amusing 
account  of  her  journey  to  the  Yosemite  with  the  Emer- 
son party.  At  the  house  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  De  Young  of 
the  "  Chronicle "  I  met  people  so  charming  that  I  began 
to  think  San  Francisco  was  after  all  the  proper  place  to 
migrate  to  from  London. 

Seated  on  a  tug,  awaiting  mails  from  the  East,  with 
which  I  am  to  go  out  to  our  royal  Pacific  ship,  an  old 
gentleman  beguiled  the  hours  till  midnight  with  his  memo- 
ries of  California.  He  had  been  one  of  the  "  Argonauts  ;  " 
he  had  sought  the  Golden  Fleece,  and  could  tell  me  of  the 
many  who  fleeced  and  the  more  who  were  fleeced.  He  was 
unimaginative,  but  his  dry  narrative  strung  facts  suffi- 
ciently poetic.  He  named  the  millionaires  whose  mansions 
stand  where  once  they  sold  whiskey  and  their  wives  cooked 


50  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

for  miners.  One  generation  had  witnessed  the  growth  of 
a  camp  of  nomads  to  a  brilliant  city,  but  to  this  day  he 
said  the  majority  of  those  who  came  to  San  Francisco 
have  deep  in  them  the  hope  of  spending  their  last  years 
somewhere  else. 

Presently  we  accompanied  one  hundred  and  fifty  huge 
mail  bags  to  the  ship  Australia.  Every  sack  was  a  witness 
to  the  vast  numbers  who  had  come  to  the  golden  shore 
only  to  find  it  a  gate  to  shores  beyond. 

At  one  o'clock  our  ship  moved  noiselessly  along  a  glitter- 
ing path  toward  a  moon  just  risen  like  a  double  eagle;  but 
we  soon  left  it  behind  us,  and  felt  the  warm  breath  of  the 
southern  Pacific.  Ah,  the  South !  the  South !  Deep  down 
in  every  breast  there  is  a  Mignon  sighing  for  the  finer 
gold  — 

The  land  where  the  citrons  bloom, 

And  the  gold  orange  lights  the  leafy  gloom. 

Voyaging  these  summer  seas,  gently  gliding  to  soft 
ripple  of  bluest  waves,  between  Elysian  dawns  and  Hes- 
perian sunsets,  sinking  more  and  more  into  a  sweet  day- 
dream, drinking  deeper  the  draught  of  Lethe,  —  we  on 
this  floating  Pacific  island  learned  more  in  a  week  than 
anthropology  can  tell  us  about  the  islanders.  We  experi- 
enced their  evolution.  By  the  time  we  reached  the  Hawai- 
ians  I  was  one  of  them.  It  took  only  three  days  to  make 
our  upper  deck  one  of  the  Society  Islands.  We  had  no 
clique  nor  caste.  Our  ship  rolled  out  of  Frisco  waters, 
but  as  it  approached  the  tropic  its  rolls  turned  to  the  easy 
swing  of  a  hammock.  We  had  hammocks  swung  on  deck, 
but  tjie  Australia  having  turned  into  one,  they  were  left 
for  the  play  of  the  younger  children.  I  say  younger,  for 
though  some  of  us  are  old,  yet  all  children  —  or  nearly  all. 
The  husband  who  watched  so  anxiously  beside  a  pale  wife, 


SHAKESPEARE-BACONISM  51 

answered  a  bloom  on  her  cheek  with  a  smiling  certainty 
that  health  is  gained  at  last  (credulous  child !).  The  spec- 
ulator who  had  brooded  over  lost  thousands  recovered 
them  all  when  his  number  in  the  sweepstakes  on  the 
boat's  run  turned  up  winner. 

When  we  first  gathered  in  the  smoking-room  the  con- 
versation fell  on  Shakespeare.  In  St.  Louis  I  had  been 
visited  by  Mr.  Holmes,  who  had  written  a  book  to  prove 
that  Lord  Bacon  wrote  the  plays  ascribed  to  Shakespeare. 
An  Australian  gentleman  mentioned  that  the  late  Dr. 
Thompson  of  Melbourne  —  a  great  authority  on  typhus 
—  was  an  enthusiastic  believer  in  the  theory  that  Lord 
Bacon  wrote  the  plays  attributed  to  Shakespeare.  He 
wrote  a  work  to  prove  that  theory,  and  his  friend  said  Dr. 
Thompson  would  have  parted  from  anything  on  earth 
sooner  than  that  conviction.  This  is  of  psychological  in- 
terest. What  is  there  in  the  substitution  of  one  name 
for  another  on  the  title-page  of  a  book,  to  excite  such 
enthusiasm  ? 

Just  before  leaving  California  I  received  from  a  gentle- 
man in  that  region  an  elaborate  manuscript  advocating 
this  notion,  and  a  note  saying  that  he  was  "  as  serenely 
and  joyfully  and  exultingly  sure  of  this  as  of  any  mortal 
thing  "  —  language  one  might  expect  from  a  Salvationist. 
I  once  met  Mr.  Atkinson,  Harriet  Martineau's  famous 
friend,  and  found  the  "  Baconian  "  theory  was  his  substi- 
tute for  Christianity.  That  this  idea  about  Bacon  writ- 
ing Shakespeare  should  flit  around  the  world  and  fill  its 
believers  with  an  exaltation  and  peace  which  the  world 
cannot  give,  is  phenomenal. 

One  morning  a  flying  fish  alighted  on  our  upper  deck, 
causing  a  sensation  among  us.  His  graceful,  silvery  little 
body  was  sent  to  the  cook ;  his  wings  were  preserved  by 


52  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

the  doctor.  Poor  little  transcendentalist !  how  long  had 
he  dreamed  of  this  huge  Unknown  Power,  propelled  by  an 
inscrutable  screw,  passing  through  the  firmament  above 
his  element  ?  One  resolute  flight  into  the  empyrean,  one 
wild  effort  to  penetrate  the  Unknowable,  and  he  gained 
full  sight  of  the  chess-playing,  novel-reading  Olympians  ; 
but  it  was  only  to  perish.  Meanwhile,  among  his  less 
aspiring  companions  of  the  deep  he  has  perhaps  left  the 
legend  of  an  ascension.  Less  sorrowful  was  the  fate  of 
the  huge  sunfish  caught  under  the  bow  of  the  ship,  whence 
it  could  not  free  itself.  It  was  large  and  heavy  enough  to 
retard  the  progress  of  the  Australia.  Efforts  were  made 
to  secure  it ;  for  we  all  saw  it  and  would  have  lovingly 
eaten  it ;  but  when  the  obstructed  ship  was  stopped,  and 
the  pressure  of  the  water  that  held  the  great  fish  removed, 
it  darted  away.  Happy  sunfish,  that  your  solar  affinities 
were  limited  to  your  name !  Alas  for  your  winged  con- 
temporary that  perished  in  mounting  to  our  steam-winged 
sea-monster ! 

I  lay  in  my  hammock  dreaming  on  "the  attribute  of 
wings."  This  was  the  title  of  an  essay  by  Toussenel  trans- 
lated by  Dr.  Lazarus  for  my  "  Dial "  (Cincinnati,  1860). 
In  his  exquisitely  winged  fantasy  Toussenel  spoke  of  the 
"  queen  of  dance,"  Taglioni  as  La  Sylphide,  "  whose  wings 
fall  at  the  first  kiss  of  love."  I  was  too  late  in  Europe  to 
see  Taglioni  on  the  stage,  but  had  the  honour  of  being 
seated  beside  her  in  London  at  a  dinner  given  by  the 
lord  mayor  to  authors  and  artists ;  and  a  lovely  and 
spirituelle  lady  she  was,  happy  in  teaching  others  her 
beautiful  art.  For  her  genius  had  not  all  lodged  in  her 
feet. 

What  a  contrast  between  her  and  the  brilliant  Puritan 
lady,  Delia  Bacon,  whose  wings  expanded  under  the  joint 


DELIA   BACON  53 

touch  of  her  eloquent  brother,  Rev.  Leonard  Bacon,  and 
Emerson,  and  led  her  —  unkissed  of  love  —  to  leap  aloft 
to  death!  For  it  is  my  belief  that  her  delusion  about 
Shakespeare  had  birth  in  Emerson's  lecture,  "  Shake- 
speare ;  or  The  Poet"  (Representative  Men,  1850).  After 
all  his  exaltation  of  Shakespeare  the  ghost  of  Puritanism 
seized  Emerson's  pen  and  added :  "  He  was  master  of  the 
revels  of  mankind.  ...  I  cannot  marry  this  fact  to  his 
verse ;  ...  it  must  even  go  into  the  world's  history  that 
the  best  poet  led  an  obscure  and  profane  life,  using  his 
genius  for  the  amusement  of  mankind."  Two  or  three 
years  after  this,  Delia  Bacon,  a  teacher  in  Boston,  sent  to 
"  Putnam's  Magazine  "  her  denial  that  the  great  poems 
could  have  been  written  by  the  "illiterate"  manager  of  the 
"  sordid  play-house."  The  magazine  hesitated  to  print  it, 
and  it  did  not  appear  until  January,  1856.  It  was  anon- 
ymous, and  the  name  of  Lord  Bacon  was  not  in  it ;  but 
the  concluding  paragraph  intimates  that  there  was  "  one  " 
who  would  be  connected  with  the  plays  in  a  further  article. 
But  no  other  article  appeared,  for  Delia  had  gone  to  Lon- 
don in  1853,  and  was  deep  in  her  volume,  "  The  Philoso- 
phy of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare,"  which  appeared  there 
in  1857.  Delia  Bacon's  chief  aim  was  to  preserve  the 
greatest  works  ever  written  from  association  with  the 
greenroom  and  the  playhouse  and  connect  them  with 
the  serious  purposes  of  the  great  and  learned  men  at  the 
head  of  whom  stood  Lord  Bacon.  She  was  no  Bacon 
worshipper. 

But  to  what  a  rambling  digression  have  I  been  led  by 
"  Baconian  "  discussions  of  the  Australia ! 

It  gave  me  much  pleasure  to  know  that  we  were  to  pass 
a  whole  day  in  Honolulu,  where  early  travellers  had 
reported  a  charming  play  of  human  life;  but  alas,  we 


54  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

were  all  in  a  manner  wrecked  there.  The  desert  on  which 
we  were  cast  was  the  Sabbath.  The  old  Blue  Laws  of 
New  England,  supposed  by  some  to  be  mythical,  were  very 
real  at  Honolulu.  Sabbatarianism  is  remorseless  enough 
in  the  South :  one  who  was  asked  whether  he  had  ever  been 
in  a  certain  Virginia  town  answered,  "  Yes,  I  was  there 
three  weeks  one  Sunday."  But  nowhere  else  in  the  world 
was  I  ever  so  waylaid  and  plundered  by  the  Sabbath  as  in 
Honolulu.  A  man  may  be  arrested  even  for  having  his 
shop  window  open.  Our  ship's  company  went  about  in  the 
fervid  heat  with  parched  throats,  unable  to  get  even  a 
glass  of  soda  water  —  nor  indeed  any  cold  water  at  all,  the 
sale  of  ice  being  prohibited.  So  far  as  the  natives  were 
concerned,  instead  of  their  sports  and  dances  which  a  civ- 
ilized Sunday  would  have  shown  us,  they  were  about  as 
lively  as  a  cemetery.  Apparently  the  police  were  doubled 
for  the  purpose  of  pouncing  on  any  poor  Hawaiian 
attempting  to  sell  little  souvenirs  or  fruit,  and  to  prevent 
our  having  comfort,  much  less  fun,  on  shore.  How 
pleased  the  Lord  must  have  been  to  observe  from  his 
throne  how  we  were  offered  as  human  sacrifices  to  his 
Sabbath ! 

Observing  just  inside  the  open  door  of  a  small  conven- 
ticle a  bucket  of  water  with  a  cocoanut  dipper,  I  entered 
and  got  a  cool  drink.  A  Hawaiian  preacher  was  speak- 
ing to  a  small  company  of  his  own  race  in  English.  All 
were  dressed  in  solemn  and  heavy  black,  —  on  that 
burning  day,  —  and  after  listening  a  little  the  black  garb 
seemed  but  too  true  a  symbol  of  the  gloomy  gospel  im- 
ported into  the  once  happy  islands.  Passing  on  through 
the  sepulchral  streets,  I  entered  a  church  where  a  white 
preacher  was  holding  forth  to  humble  Hawaiians,  offering 
them  dogmatic  stones  where  they  needed  bread.  I  imagine 


A  HONOLULU  SABBATH  55 

that  he  was  at  Honolulu  because  elsewhere  no  congrega- 
tion would  listen  to  such  stuff. 

The  Sabbath  is  a  great  snob.  In  Honolulu  it  accommo- 
dated itself  to  royalty,  for  we  saw  the  king  enjoying  his 
yacht ;  also  to  commerce,  for  the  sailors,  assisted  by 
Hawaiians,  passed  the  whole  day  unloading  and  reload- 
ing our  ship. 

I  was  glad  to  meet  one  young  gentleman,  Mr.  Frank 
Damon,  who  was  interesting  himself  in  the  health  and 
comfort  of  the  half-caste  population,  —  a  mixture  of 
Chinese  and  Hawaiian,  —  and  who  showed  me  through 
a  large  home  for  the  orphans  of  such  parentage.  He  was 
thoroughly  educated,  and  familiar  with  the  Chinese  lan- 
guage. His  father,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Damon,  whom  I  also  met, 
gave  me  some  copies  of  a  monthly  they  were  editing,  "  The 
Friend"  (founded  in  1843).  In  it  I  read  an  authentic 
account  of  the  death  of  Captain  Cook  in  1779.  His 
sailors  had  seized  an  old  wooden  god  to  use  for  kindling 
wood.  The  natives  tried  to  recover  their  god;  there 
was  a  fight;  and  Captain  Cook,  running  up  to  know 
what  was  the  trouble,  was  speared  in  the  back.  In  1811 
a  native  youth  named  Obookiah,  questioned  about  this 
wooden  god,  said  that  the  Hawaiians  believed  that  when 
they  had  made  such  a  form  and  set  it  up  the  spirit  "  would 
come  and  live  in  the  wood,  and  when  the  wood  gets  old 
they  make  a  new  wooden  god,  and  the  spirit  goes  out  of 
the  old  one  and  comes  to  live  in  the  new."  I  received  a 
strong  impression  that  the  spirit  of  that  wooden  god  had 
passed  into  the  Sabbath  Idol. 

A  young  Englishman  and  myself  managed,  however,  to 
get  a  Hawaiian  to  drive  us  in  an  open  carriage  six  or  seven 
miles  into  the  country  along  the  seaside.  We  had  thus  a 
few  hours'  enjoyment  of  the  beautiful  trees  and  flowers 


56  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

and  birds,  a  delicious  bath  in  the  sea,  the  happiness  of  our 
expedition  being  enhanced  by  a  religious  satisfaction  in 
having  defied  the  "Wooden  Idol. 

On  the  ship  we  had  beautiful  days,  always  blue  with 
soft  zephyrs,  and  I  lay  in  my  hammock,  gently  swung  by 
the  ship's  motion.  In  a  slumbrous  way  I  read  some 
little  papers  picked  up  at  Honolulu,  the  most  interesting 
being  an  almanac  (1883)  containing  some  Hawaiian  pro- 
verbs collected  by  H.  L.  Sheldon.  Several  of  them  were 
original.  "Daubed  with  white"  is  said  of  a  silly  grey- 
haired  person.  "Don't  be  friends  with  the  dog,  for  the 
tail  will  show  it, "  has  reference  to  disreputable  acquaint- 
ances. "  Children  always  begin  at  the  fountain." 

One  proverb  particularly  impressed  me :  "  The  kalo 
root  is  dead,  but  there  are  live  maggots  enough."  Kalo 
is  the  taro  of  New  Zealand  —  arum  esculentum,  a  kind 
of  lily,  whose  root  is  between  a  yam  and  a  potato  —  and 
when  it  dies  is  soon  full  of  maggots.  Mr.  Sheldon  says 
this  proverb  was  "  formerly  applied  to  battles  in  which  the 
bravest  had  perished,  but  in  these  modern  times  has  been 
applied  by  scoffers  to  the  overthrow  of  paganism  and  the 
growth  of  Christianity  in  its  place." 

The  story  of  the  overthrow  of  paganism  in  the  Hawaiian 
Islands  will  never  be  fairly  told,  but  there  is  endlessly 
repeated  the  dramatic  legend  of  the  lady  convert  Kapio- 
lani  defying  the  volcanic  goddess  Pele  by  approaching 
the  blazing  crater  of  Mauna  Loa,  despite  predictions  of 
disaster  by  the  priestess  of  Pele.  The  lady  of  rank,  it  is 
said,  cried  out  to  the  fearful  crowd,  "  Jehovah  is  my  God. 
He  kindled  those  fires.  I  fear  not  Pele.  If  I  perish  by 
the  anger  of  Pele,  then  you  may  fear  the  power  of  Pele ; 
but  if  I  trust  in  Jehovah  and  he  should  save  me  from  the 
wrath  of  Pele,  then  you  must  serve  and  fear  the  Lord 


VOLCANIC  THEOLOGY  57 

Jehovah.  All  the  gods  of  Hawaii  are  vain.  Great  is  Jeho- 
vah's goodness  in  sending  teachers  to  turn  us  from  these 
vanities  to  the  living  God."  Pele  thenceforth  lost  her 
popularity. 

Kapiolani  is  a  saint  among  the  missionaries,  but  accord- 
ing to  the  legend  she  had  simply  substituted  a  Jewish  for 
a  Hawaiian  name  for  the  "kindler"  of  volcanoes.  Out  of 
volcanoes  came  the  belief  in  a  fire-and-brimstone  hell; 
Mauna  Loa  took  up  the  burden  of  Etna,  and  Hawaiians 
are  still  terrorized  by  volcanic  theology.  In  "  The  Friend  " 
I  read  its  fiery  gospel.  After  witnessing  an  eruption  a  mis- 
sionary writes :  "  We  knelt  upon  the  rocks  and  joined  our 
feeble  voices  in  adoration  of  the  wise,  the  good,  the  great, 
and  glorious  Author  of  all."  When  lava  was  threatening 
the  town  Hilo,  a  missionary  writes :  "  What  a  work  this 
fiery  serpent  is  doing,  eating  every  herb  and  tree,  drink- 
ing up  the  rivers,  and  licking  up  the  dust.  All  is  life  and 
verdure  below  —  all  ebon  blackness  and  desolation  be- 
hind." Thus  one  of  these  brethren  sees  a  fiery  serpent  in 
what  the  other  kneels  to.1 

The  most  painful  aspect  of  the  course  of  human  events 
is  the  frequency  with  which  "  self-sacrificing  "  efforts  for 
human  benefit  bear  evil  results.  Some  of  the  early  mis- 
sionaries to  the  Hawaiian  Islands,  living  at  a  time  when 
even  some  able  men  believed  that  the  so-called  "  heathen  " 
would  be  damned,  left  beautiful  homes  and  fairest  pros- 
pects for  wild  and  dangerous  regions  to  rescue  those  they 

1  The  substitution  of  Jehovah  for  Pele  was  a  transfer  of  the  title  of 
Hawaii  from  the  natives  to  the  Christians.  It  also  inflicted  on  the  natives 
the  cruel  Sabbath.  And  further  it  made  more  malarious  the  moral  atmos- 
phere ;  for  in  1887  the  Princess  Liki  Liki  was  said  to  have  starved  herself  to 
death  as  a  sacrifice  to  Jehovah  to  appease  flaming  Mauna  Loa.  She  was 
educated  in  America,  and  married  an  American  (A.  B.  Cleghorn),  hut  the 
ancient  exaction  of  Pele  of  a  royal  victim  survived  with  fatal  force  under 
the  volcanic  Jehovah. 


58  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

supposed  perishing.  A  pathetic  history  is  that  of  the  Rev. 
Titus  Coan  (father  of  the  well-known  writer  Dr.  Titus 
Munson  Coan  of  New  York),  who,  escaping  from  long  cap- 
tivity among  the  Patagonians,  reached  his  home  and  his 
betrothed  bride,  Fidelia  Church  of  Churchville,  New 
York,  but  only  to  set  out  again  for  mission  work.  In 
November,  1834,  he  started  with  his  bride  for  Hawaii, 
exiles  from  all  they  held  dearest  save  their  united  hearts. 
In  such  service  their  fine  qualities  were  given  to  save 
and  benefit  a  race  which,  instead  of  being  cultivated  and 
developed  under  Christianity,  has  become  extinct.  What 
worth  they  put  into  their  work  was  returned  to  them  in 
their  own  homes,  and  in  the  happiness  of  some  individual 
natives  around  them ;  but  as  to  the  Hawaiian  race,  their 
power  to  benefit  was  not  so  great  as  the  power  of  their 
regime  to  destroy  those  poor  islanders.  Their  theology 
alone  might  have  been  innocuous,  for  the  Hawaiians  could 
not  have  understood  it ;  the  moral  system,  the  supersti- 
tion that  nudity  is  wicked,  that  gaiety  and  pleasure  are 
offensive  to  God,  and  consequent  changes  in  their  ways 
of  life,  as  Charles  Darwin  pointed  out,  —  these  are 
the  things  fatal  to  tropical  tribes.  Dr.  Titus  M.  Coan, 
quoted  by  Darwin  in  his  "  Descent  of  Man,"  says :  "  The 
[Hawaiian]  natives  have  undergone  a  greater  change  in 
their  habits  of  life  in  fifty  years  than  Englishmen  in  a 
thousand  years." 

It  is  the  philosophy  of  "  La  Grande  Duchesse  "  that  "  if 
you  can't  get  what  you  set  your  heart  upon,  you  must  set 
your  heart  upon  what  you  can  get."  It  is  a  philosophy 
I  found  confirmed  by  experience  on  the  ship  Australia. 
It  was  tantalizing  to  voyage  with  a  consciousness  that  a 
few  hours  on  one  or  another  of  the  islands  might  repay 
one  for  all  the  trouble  of  coming  so  far ;  but  our  ship  was 


OFF   TUTUILA  59 

cynically  indifferent  to  beauty  and  anthropology.  It  aimed 
to  make  Sydney  in  time  not  to  be  fined  for  dilatoriness 
in  bringing  the  mail.  As  we  sailed  past  the  island  of 
Tutuila  some  natives  were  considerate  enough  to  pad- 
dle around  our  ship  in  their  canoes,  and  we  felt  grateful 
enough  to  pay  them  well  for  their  breadfruit.  They  were 
handsome  in  form  and  figure  and  their  voices  musical. 
At  a  little  distance  they  appeared  to  have  on  bluish 
drawers,  but  close  inspection  showed  that  it  was  artistic 
tattoo  in  imitation  of  clothing  from  hip  to  knee.  The 
nautilus-like  canoe  seemed  to  be  born  and  loved  of  the 
waves  on  which  it  floated.  In  the  distance  we  saw  a  church 
steeple,  and  a  gentleman  familiar  with  the  island  told  us 
that  the  only  trouble  of  these  islanders  is  a  never  ceasing 
civil  war  between  Catholics  and  Protestants.  It  breaks 
out  afresh  when  an  official  is  to  be  elected,  priests  and 
preachers  arousing  animosities  that  lead  to  blows. 

From  week  to  week  on  our  little  floating  world  we  saw 
no  sail.  One  can  adapt  himself  to  a  very  small  environ- 
ment. Nobody  seemed  to  find  the  voyage  tedious.  An 
hour  passes  swiftly  to  one  watching  the  albatross  (with 
eyes  touched  by  Coleridge),  the  flying-fish  flushed  by  our 
prow,  the  little  mystical  fleets  of  pearly  "Portuguese 
men-of-war." 

Whatever  we  see  in  nature  that  is  beautiful  or  grand 
appears  so  real  that  we  forever  renew  the  Vedic  visions, 
and  in  each  fair  object  feel  that  we  have  surprised  some 
feature  of  a  supreme  Artist.  The  immemorial  ages  have 
determined  that  we  shall  never  see  nature  as  it  really  is. 
Like  a  pious  Scotchman  who  objected  to  the  stained 
church  window,  "they  might  better  have  left  the  glass 
as  God  made  it,"  we  all  credit  nature  with  the  many-tinted 
veils  woven  for  it  by  poet  and  mythist. 


60  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

The  protoplasm  of  all  gods  and  myths  is  present  with 
us  at  sea,  and  it  required  only  a  week  or  so  to  evolve  them 
all  in  a  quasi-realistic  way  not  known  in  learned  books. 
Afreets  appeared  in  guise  of  water-spouts.  We  saw  Pro- 
teus and  his  flock  in  endless  illusions,  and  heard  old  Tri- 
ton blow  his  wreathed  horn  in  the  small  hours  of  night. 
Classic  geographers  may  conjecture  the  regions  visited  by 
Odysseus,  but  we  found  them  all  in  cloudlands  of  the 
western  twilight,  with  palms,  groves,  and  grottoes  of  the 
Sirens.  With  every  dawn  Aphrodite  rises  from  the  waves. 
I  watched  two  stars  of  the  first  magnitude ;  they  became 
the  Vedic  twin  horsemen  (As wins),  next  the  Centaurs ; 
when  one  sank  beneath  the  horizon,  clearly  Romulus  had 
slain  Remus,  and  Cain  Abel. 

As  for  the  sun,  he  got  up  for  us  special  performances 
which  interpreted  the  whole  solar  mythology.  One  day  he 
came  forth  as  mariners  had  never  seen  him  before  —  pure 
blue;  all  day  everything  and  everybody  looked  blue. 
Captain  Bannerman  said  this  was  new  in  his  experience ; 
the  astonishment  of  the  crew  was  evident,  and  it  became 
anxiety  when  about  three  in  the  afternoon  there  appeared 
around  the  sun  a  vast  ring  of  copper-tinted  mist.  Two 
hours  later  this  mist  sank  and  made  the  horizon  seem 
brass ;  after  sunset  there  flamed  up  an  afterglow  that  ap- 
peared mingled  of  blood  and  fire.  On  the  following  day 
the  sun  was  blood-red  and  an  hour  before  the  time  for 
sunset  sank  behind  the  wall  of  copper  that  made  our  west- 
ern horizon.  I  say  "  wall,"  for  it  was  not  a  cloud  ;  it  was 
fixed  there  motionless  and  opaque  evening  after  evening, 
the  rest  of  the  sky  being  clear.  On  reaching  New  Zealand 
we  heard  of  the  terrible  earthquake  and  volcanic  eruptions 
in  Batavia. 

One  evening  we  all  crowded  on  deck  for  the  first  sight 


THE   SOUTHERN   CROSS  61 

of  the  Southern  Cross.  There  it  shone,  just  above  the 
southern  horizon,  politely  veiling  its  fifth  star — which 
ought  to  be  at  the  juncture  of  the  imaginary  bars  but 
is  not,  and  when  seen  renders  it  difficult  to  run  the  bars 
regularly  between  the  stars  that  conduct  themselves  in  a 
more  Christian-like  way.  When  we  first  saw  the  Southern 
Cross  its  long  bar  was  parallel  with  the  horizon,  but  after 
some  hours  it  stood  upside  down,  as  if  for  Peter  to  be 
crucified  with  his  head  downwards,  and  slowly  sank  out 
of  sight  beneath  the  Centaur. 

The  swift  apparent  revolution  of  the  Southern  Cross 
did  not  escape  the  Pacific  islanders ;  they  have  a  belief 
that  one  watching  carefully  would  see  it  at  some  moment 
turn  half  around.  In  several  islands  "  Quick  as  the  turn- 
ing of  the  Southern  Cross  "  is  a  proverbial  phrase. 

One  or  two  passengers  whispered  in  my  ear  that  they 
could  not  see  any  cross,  and  all  who  saw  it  the  first  night 
were  silent,  being  plainly  disappointed.  By  the  second 
night  faith  had  been  summoned  and  the  Southern  Cross 
was  clear  to  nearly  all.  How  little  the  constellation  could 
suggest  a  cross  to  unsophisticated  eyes  is  shown  in  the 
label  given  it  by  the  Pacific  tribes :  "  The  Nose  of  the 
Man  that  fell  after  eating  sugar-cane."  This  refers  to  some 
legend  so  ancient  that  no  one  can  explain  it. 

The  rough  horse-play  once  usual  on  all  ships  crossing 
the  equator  is  now  suppressed  on  respectable  steamships ; 
but  probably  there  was  some  potent  origin  for  that  usage, 
for  about  that  line  sports  are  commonly  got  up.  We  had 
them  on  the  Australia  —  foot-race,  steeple-chase,  handi- 
cap, high  jump,  low  jump,  and  tug-of-war.  In  this  last  the 
English  and  Americans  were  outpulled  by  the  Austra- 
lians. There  was  a  pretty  race  around  the  deck  between 
three  little  girls;  three  ladies  ran  an  egg  and  spoon 


62  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

race,  won  by  her  who  first  reaches  the  winning-post  with- 
out letting  the  egg  fall  from  her  spoon.  A  pretty  young 
bride  from  Shropshire  won  the  prize  against  an  American 
and  an  Australian  competitor.  The  English  lady's  success 
was  due  to  dressing  for  her  task  in  a  way  that  her  com- 
petitors were  too  prudish  to  imitate ;  her  skirt  fell  a  little 
below  the  knee. 

In  the  evening  we  had  concerts,  readings,  recitations, 
lectures.  I  spun  for  them  all  the  yarns  I  knew  of  the  sea, 
—  the  Flying  Dutchman,  Atlantis,  the  search  for  Prester 
John,  and  the  Micmac  Saint  carried  by  the  original 
Whale  to  the  Happy  Isle.  A  learned  rabbi  disposed  of 
the  notion  that  the  English  are  "  the  lost  Tribe,"  or  that 
any  tribe  was  lost,  —  this  "  Anglo-Israelite "  delusion 
being  then  abreast  with  the  Baconian.  There  was  some- 
thing striking  in  the  venerable  figure  of  the  rabbi  dis- 
claiming for  his  race  all  connection  with  the  race  on  whose 
empire  the  sun  never  sets,  —  a  certain  half -conscious  pride 
as  of  an  old  aristocratic  family  repudiating  a  parvenu 
connection.  The  venerable  Jew  declared  there  was  to  be 
no  return  of  Jews  to  Jerusalem,  and  no  personal  Messiah 
to  come ;  but  he  repeated  a  poem  prophetic  of  the  glory 
of  Israel  in  the  future  —  itself  the  Messiah.  His  ecstasy 
of  faith  in  this  Israel-Messiah  was  pathetic,  —  as  of  some 
devoted  woman  ever  waiting  for  the  return  of  her  beloved. 
He  can  never  return,  as  others  know,  but  she  never  doubts ; 
girlhood  has  grown  to  maidenhood,  age  has  silvered  her 
hair,  but  she  has  denied  every  other  wooer,  and  through 
her  spectacles  still  gazes  on  the  horizon  where  his  sail  dis- 
appeared. Yet  her  constancy  is  not  without  some  reward. 
Even  here,  thousands  of  miles  from  Palestine,  she  on 
Sunday  sits  invisible  beside  the  rabbi  on  deck,  and  listens 
to  Gentiles  in  the  saloon  chanting  the  prophecies  and 


AN  UNWELCOME   SABBATH  63 

psalms  with  which  she  has  sustained  her  heart  in  the  long 
night-watches. 

In  crossing  the  180th  parallel  it  is  necessary  to  drop  a 
day.  On  our  voyage  the  omitted  day  would  by  calendar 
be  Sunday,  and  the  prospect  of  getting  a  fortnight  with- 
out a  Sabbath  gave  joy  to  the  card-players.  But  they  had 
a  cruel  disappointment.  Captain  Bannerman  could  not 
venture  to  drop  a  Sabbath ;  Saturday  must  be  substituted. 
Efforts  were  made  to  dissuade  him,  but  he  answered, 
"  What  would  the  pious  ladies  say  ?  It  would  disturb  them 
all  the  rest  of  the'  voyage  to  feel  themselves  on  a  godless 
ship!" 

Nevertheless  some  of  the  card-players  appeared  to  feel 
that  this  particular  Sunday  was  not  a  genuine  one,  and  as 
it  was  rainy  the  lack  of  amusement  in  the  smoking-room 
was  serious.  As  the  captain  did  not  keep  a  vigilant  eye 
on  the  room  that  day,  three  young  poker-players  resolved 
to  go  as  far  as  whist.  Their  difficulty  was  to  find  a  fourth 
hand.  Only  two  others  were  present — myself,  absorbed 
in  a  volume,  and  a  large  middle-aged  man  who  appeared  in 
his  corner  to  be  asleep.  Had  I  been  invited  I  would  gladly 
have  taken  a  hand,  but  my  ministerial  office  probably 
denied  me  that  pleasure.  The  other  man  had  boarded 
our  ship  at  Honolulu  and  for  some  reason  had  not  made 
acquaintance  of  the  smoking-room.  On  this  Sunday  he 
had  all  the  appearance  of  a  Presbyterian  preacher.  He 
was  six  feet,  his  face  clean  shaven,  his  countenance 
severe.  He  was  dressed  in  black  broadcloth  from  head  to 
foot,  and  his  standing  collar  and  plain  shirt-front  did  not 
need  a  white  cravat  to  stamp  him  as  a  Puritan  minister. 
However,  the  three  were  desperate,  and  when  the  impos- 
ing man  unclosed  his  eyes  a  little  one  of  them  said,  "  Would 
you,  sir,  object  —  ah — to  —  ah — taking  a  hand  at  whist  ?  " 


64  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

The  black-garbed  man  turned  on  them  fiercely,  his  dark 
eye  flashing.  "  I  am  surprised,"  he  said  solemnly,  "  that 
men  well  dressed,  on  a  respectable  boat,  should  ask  me 
on  the  Lor-rd's  Day  to  join  in  a  game  of  whist ! "  The 
three  young  men  cowered  before  the  rebuke,  but  the  min- 
isterial figure  added,  "  Whist,  sir  ?  —  no  !  But  I  don't 
mind  joining  in  a  little  poker."  There  was  a  shout,  and 
the  "  puritanical "  man,  who  turned  out  to  be  a  granger 
of  New  Zealand,  seemed  to  keep  his  pile  of  money  at  a 
good  height.  My  impression  was  that  the  stage  had  lost 
an  admirable  actor  in  that  granger. 

The  patron  saint  of  the  good  traveller  should  be  the 
god  Krishna,  who  so  multiplied  himself  that  every  shep- 
herdess believed  she  had  him  for  her  partner  in  the  dance. 
It  is  important  that  eveiy  traveller  likely  to  be  cited  shall 
find  the  most  beautiful  lady  he  ever  saw  in  Boston,  in  New 
York,  in  Richmond,  and  in  each  of  the  western  cities.  It 
is  especially  important  that  a  voyager  round  the  world 
shall  find  each  harbour  he  visits  the  most  beautiful  in  the 
world.  And  after  all,  is  not  the  most  beautiful  place 
always  that  you  are  in?  The  others  are  too  distant  to  be 
lovely.  The  Golden  Gate  being  three  weeks  distant,  I  had 
no  hesitation  in  declaring  the  approach  to  New  Zealand 
the  finest  I  ever  saw,  while  a  score  of  voices  warned  me 
not  to  commit  myself  till  I  had  entered  Sydney  harbour. 

However,  ever  since  I  left  London,  I  had  felt  a  grow- 
ing consciousness  that  my  admiration  for  the  "  grandeurs 
of  nature  "  had  become  more  slight  than  formerly.  It  was, 
as  I  afterwards  realized,  a  result  of  my  going  deeper  and 
deeper  into  the  corollaries  of  Darwin's  discovery.  Day  by 
day  as  I  swung  in  my  hammock  on  the  Australia,  seeing 
around  me  the  play  of  human  life,  the  expressions  and 
interchanges  of  affection  and  kindliness,  the  contrast  of 


A   DAY  IN   NEW   ZEALAND  65 

these  with  the  terrible  water-spouts  forming  and  re-form- 
ing here  and  there,  —  once  dangerously  near  our  ship, 
which  would  have  foundered  under  its  touch,  — and  the 
cruel  monsters  of  the  deep  pursuing  their  prey,  our  own 
monster  ship  destroying  fleets  of  the  pearly  nautilus,  and 
many  things  pressed  in  on  my  long  interval  of  leisure  the 
recognition  that  Nature  is  fundamentally  predatory. 

My  real  interest  was  in  man.  I  could  only  pass  a  day 
in  New  Zealand,  and  it  was  devoted  to  seeing  as  much  of 
the  New  Zealanders  as  possible.  I  had  an  English-speak- 
ing native  to  guide  me  about,  and  made  myself  welcome 
in  their  homes  by  little  gifts  to  the  children  and  pur- 
chases from  any  who  had  things  to  sell.  They  impressed 
me  pleasantly,  and  I  was  inclined  to  think  well  of  their 
English  rulers  on  seeing  the  happy  well-fed  look  of  these 
humble  people.  They  had  pretty  costumes  also  —  the 
women,  that  is,  for  these  are  the  last  in  all  colonies  to 
affect  the  garb  of  the  white  race.  Most  of  them  wore  a 
sort  of  "  jersey  "  of  some  bright  colour,  sometimes  nearly 
diaphanous,  and  they  were  shapely  enough  for  it  to  be 
becoming.  In  my  conversations  with  them  through  my 
guide  I  found  them  candid  and  witty. 

On  returning  to  our  ship  the  passengers  told  me  of 
various  crags  and  waterfalls  and  distant  prospects  they 
had  managed  to  see  by  drives,  but  I  felt  satisfied  with 
the  glimpses  I  had  secured  of  a  variety  of  humanity.  I 
left  New  Zealand  with  reluctance,  and  with  hope  in  my 
heart  that  I  might  some  day  return.  For  in  a  certain 
part  of  the  island  an  influential  family  belonging  to  my 
London  chapel  had  settled,  and  in  laying  out  a  village 
they  had  after  a  sharp  controversy  succeeded  in  naming 
the  streets  after  the  great  scientific  heretics  —  Darwin, 
Huxley,  Tyndall  streets,  etc.,  and  they  had  often  de- 


66  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

manded  that  I  should  come  over  and  lecture  in  that  ideal 
village. 

But  in  the  course  of  time  what  will  these  names  signify 
to  the  people  of  that  region  ?  Even  while  those  men  lived 
there  were  comparatively  few  to  comprehend  their  precise 
addition  to  knowledge,  and  it  was  impossible  that  they 
themselves  could  perceive  the  logical  results  of  their  own 
generalizations.  Every  individual  light  must  shine  at  last 
(if  at  all)  in  the  sum  of  the  average  mind ;  the  thinker's 
undergraduate  or  casual  or  superannuated  words  are  con- 
fused with  his  real  contribution  to  science ;  the  emanci- 
pator of  thought  in  his  own  time  is  liable  to  become  its 
oppressor  in  the  farther  time.  I  had  pleasure  in  telling 
Dr.  Tyndall  and  Huxley  that  they  had  named  streets  in 
New  Zealand.  I  remember  that  Carlyle,  though  he  de- 
clined a  title  offered  by  Queen  Victoria,  was  gratified  when 
a  pretty  place  at  Chelsea  was  named  "  Carlyle  Square." 

The  company  on  our  ship  consisted  mainly  of  well-to- 
do  and  fairly  educated  people,  most  of  them  rather  young. 
They  showed  enthusiasm  for  natural  scenery,  and  those  who 
resided  in  Australia  supplied  me  with  advice  where  to  go 
in  that  country.  "  Such  a  view !  Such  superb  precipices !  " 
"  Are  there  any  aborigines  ? "  "  Oh  no,  they  have  long 
disappeared."  But  they  have  left  behind  them  curious 
folk-lore,  proverbs,  legends  about  all  those  hills  and  pre- 
cipices, and  my  fellow  travellers  also  are  seeing  their 
admirable  scenes,  not  as  they  really  are,  but  as  trans- 
figured or  decorated  by  their  faith  or  by  their  favourite 
poets. 

On  my  way  to  Sydney  I  fell  in  with  Mr.  Young,  a 
nephew  of  James  Bryce,  M.  P.,  engaged  in  the  pearl  busi- 
ness; and  his  charming  tales  about  the  divers  and  the 
pearl  oysters  so  illuminated  the  ocean's  depths  that  there 


A   FLOATING  UTOPIA  67 

appeared  a  new  mythology  even  down  there.  The  Persian 
Isle  of  Aval  linked  itself  with  our  English  Avalon,  the 
Arthurian  paradise.  Two  months  before  a  poor  fisherman 
had  found  a  pearl  which  brought  him  four  thousand 
pounds:  long  ago  Browning's  Paracelsus  had  seen  and 
named  the  two  points  in  the  adventure  of  that  diver :  — 

One,  when  a  beggar,  he  prepares  to  plunge; 
One,  when  a  prince,  he  rises  with  his  pearl. 

And  who  of  us  trained  in  the  Solomonic  similitude  of 
wisdom,  in  the  parable  of  the  lost  pearl,  in  visions  of 
the  Celestial  City  whose  every  gate  is  one  pearl,  could 
ever  see  a  pearl  as  a  mere  bit  of  encisted  dust  diseasing 
an  oyster? 

Flash !  a  great  light  blazes  over  our  ship ;  it  is  not 
St.  Elmo's  fire,  but  the  wondrous  searchlight  at  Sydney 
sweeping  our  sea  at  midnight  like  an  all-seeing  eye.  It 
was  the  last  evening  of  our  voyage  together,  which  for 
a  full  lunar  month  we  had  managed  to  make  merry  and 
even  ideal.  Much  is  said  about  civilization,  but  really 
there  is  no  such  thing  except  in  small  oases  here  and 
there  in  the  great  swarming  nations.  But  I  feel  bold 
enough  to  say  that  the  Australia  on  that  occasion  was 
a  little  floating  example  of  civilization ;  and  it  was  made 
so  chiefly  by  the  sovereignty  of  the  ladies.  Nearly  all  of 
these  were  young  married  ladies  with  their  husbands 
along,  some  on  their  honeymoon  voyage ;  but  there  being 
on  board  more  gentlemen  than  ladies  by  a  third,  these 
ladies  showed  themselves  gracious  and  agreeable  to  the 
companionless  with  that  charming  freedom  of  which  only 
innocence  and  refinement  are  capable.  A  shade  of  sadness 
therefore  comes  over  some  of  us,  even  as  we  gaze  on  the 
sublimities  of  Sydney  Harbour  at  dawn :  a  beautiful  and 


68  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

unique  thing  had  budded  off  the  Golden  Gate  and  flow- 
ered through  its  month ;  its  petals  were  now  to  be  scattered 
through  the  prosaic  streets  of  cities,  never  again  to  be 
united.  Everything  passes. 

That  poor  Australian  who  under  pressure  of  poverty 
sold  his  little  field  for  a  pittance  and  became  insane  on 
learning  that  the  sterile  field  was  a  gold  mine,  can  be 
sympathized  with  by  the  pilgrim  who  discovers  too  late 
that  he  has  passed  some  rich  treasure  and  seen  only  the 
earthen  vessel  containing  it.  Could  I  only  have  known 
even  a  little  of  the  wonderful  story  of  New  Zealand 
told  by  Dr.  Richard  Garnett  (1898)  I  should  not  have 
returned  to  England  without  really  seeing  more  of  that 
colony.  I  had  long  known  Dr.  Garnett,  as  far  as  it  was 
permissible  to  encroach  on  that  scholar  who  long  sat  in 
the  British  Museum  as  preeminently  the  interpreter  for 
literary  inquirers,  always  the  most  modest  of  the  chief- 
tains of  culture,  and  the  most  gracious.  But  as  much  as 
I  appreciated  his  varied  knowledge,  it  was  with  surprise 
that  I  read  his  contribution  to  Fisher  Unwin's  series  of  the 
Builders  of  Greater  Britain,  "  Edward  Gibbon  Wakefield, 
the  Colonization  of  South  Australia  and  New  Zealand." 
I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  other  volume  of  four 
hundred  pages  which  contains  so  much  well-digested  know- 
ledge of  the  motives  and  forces  that  go  to  the  founding 
of  an  English  colony,  and  such  clear  and  comprehensive 
insight  into  the  conditions  —  physical,  political,  and  reli- 
gious, which  modify  and  complicate  such  ideals  and  aims 
as  those  of  Wakefield.  Nor  does  any  romance  of  our  time 
surpass  in  interest  the  story  told  without  embellishment, 
of  the  admirable  man  Wakefield,  who  alone  of  the  many 
English  idealists  gave  his  entire  life  to  the  practical  reali- 
zation on  earth  of  the  Utopia  he  had  written  on  paper. 


"MOTHERLESS"   MAORIS  69 

In  1882  a  company  of  Maoris  came  to  London  for  the 
purpose  of  seeing  Queen  Victoria  and  laying  before  her 
sympathetic  heart  their  grievances.  My  wife  and  I  met 
these  still  nominal  chieftains  in  London  at  the  house  of 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  (Ottilia  Blind)  Hancock,  always  anxious 
to  comfort  the  distressed.  And  these  Maoris  were  in  deep 
distress,  not  so  much  because  of  the  troubles  that  had 
brought  them  all  the  way  from  New  Zealand,  but  because 
they  were  not  permitted  to  meet  or  see  their  Queen.  One 
of  them  who  spoke  English,  speaking  for  the  rest,  moved 
the  large  company  of  ladies  and  gentlemen  almost  to 
tears  as  he  told  of  the  grief  with  which  they  had  jour- 
neyed so  far  only  to  find  themselves  motherless.  They  did 
not,  so  far  as  I  can  remember,  tell  us  what  their  griev- 
ances were  at  home,  but  in  reply  to  our  questions  spoke 
of  the  cherished  dream  of  all  their  race  that  they  had  in 
England  a  supreme  and  benevolent  Mother  who  could 
and  would  end  all  the  troubles  of  her  remotest  children  if 
she  knew  of  them.  Since  reading  the  work  of  my  old 
friend  Dr.  Garnett,  I  have  written  to  ask  him  about  this 
New  Zealand  deputation,  and  he  says  in  a  private  note : 
"They  had  several  interviews  with  the  colonial  secre- 
tary, Lord  Kimberley,  but  he  prevented  their  seeing  the 
Queen,  who  would,  I  think,  have  insisted  upon  their 
being  admitted  to  her  presence  if  she  had  known  the 
circumstances." 


CHAPTER  IV 

The  Melbourne  Cup  —  Joss  House  —  Sects  in  Victoria  —  Governor  of 
Victoria  —  Bishop  of  Melbourne  —  Rev.  Charles  Strong — Australian 
insanity  —  Ballarat  gold  mines  —  Hon.  Peter  Lalor  —  Hon.  A.  Inglis 
Clark  —  Hobart  —  Campbellites  —  Nature's  oddities  —  Relics  of  trans- 
portation times  —  Extinction  of  Tasmanians  —  My  ordeal  in  Sydney  — 
Impaled  with  Bishop  Moorhonse  and  Rev.  Charles  Strong  —  Fusion  of 
Freethought  and  Spiritualism  —  The  Botany  Bay  myth  —  Justice  Win- 
deyer. 

IT  is  odd  that  Melbourne,  rigidly  Presbyterian,  should 
have  for  its  Pan- Australian  synod  a  horse-race.  Mel- 
bourne has,  however,  made  its  racing  week  a  social  con- 
gress of  the  colonies.  The  betting  is  universal.  Sweep- 
stakes were  arranged  in  the  schools  (by  the  teachers),  and 
Cup  Day  is  a  holiday.  It  was  stated  that  after  the  Cup 
race  a  carriage  horse  was  observed  to  throw  down  a 
mouthful  of  hay  given  him,  which  his  mate  pounced  on. 

Early  in  the  morning  I  walked  over  the  course,  so  to 
say.  Byron  Moore,  secretary  of  the  Racing  Club,  guided 
me,  and  I  saw  the  artistic  arrangements  for  this  great 
event.  The  apartments  for  the  governor  and  his  com- 
pany, the  committee  rooms,  the  medical  rooms,  the  ladies' 
rooms,  —  all  were  elaborately  elegant.  There  was  fine  floral 
decoration  everywhere ;  cosmetics  in  the  ladies'  room,  and 
needles  threaded  with  every  colour,  ready  for  use. 

In  the  element  of  grotesquerie  the  English  Derby  has 
large  advantages  over  the  Cup,  where  respectability  was 
carried  to  an  extreme ;  there  was  hardly  a  side-show, 
nothing  characteristic  of  the  country,  no  aborigines,  no 
boomerangs.  It  all  impressed  me  as  too  much  a  Presbyte- 


JOSS  HOUSE  IN  MELBOURNE  71 

rian  Vanity  Fair;  no  one  could  fail  to  be  struck  by  the 
multitude  of  beautiful  ladies  and  fine  looking  men,  but 
they  appeared  so  serious !  It  was  pleasant  to  see  so  many 
people  without  any  tipsiness,  but  there  might  have  been 
some  fun. 

The  Chinese  Joss  House  in  Melbourne  presented  more 
primitive  peculiarities  than  I  discovered  in  the  San  Fran- 
cisco institution.  There  was  a  mortuary  where  the  Chinese 
who  can  afford  it  can  keep  little  four-inch  tombstones  of 
themselves  while  they  are  alive ;  at  death  the  man's  in- 
scribed stone  is  set  up  on  a  consecrated  shelf.  There 
were  over  twelve  thousand  Chinese  in  Victoria  (1883), 
and  their  chapel  suggested  wealth.  In  the  main  temple 
one  approaches  the  altar  past  the  ferocious  but  impossi- 
ble lions  and  sees  six  pink  candles  arranged  like  those  on 
Christian  altars ;  at  the  end  of  each  row  of  candles  is  a 
foliated  pillar  about  two  feet  high,  set  in  a  pot,  around 
which  coils  a  dragon  whose  head  is  bearded  and  horned. 
He  guards  a  little  tree  growing  out  of  another  pot.  Near 
by  is  a  bell  and  drum,  the  object  of  which  is  to  drive 
away  evil  demons,  —  for  it  is  universal  demonology  that 
demons  cannot  stand  order ;  when  the  air  is  made  mu- 
sical or  rhythmic  they  must  fly  to  a  wilder  atmosphere. 
Over  the  altar  is  a  well-painted  picture  of  a  Chinese 
triad  —  Kwan-yin,  Kawn-Tom,  Ti-tom.  The  last  two  of 
these  names  I  had  to  take  phonetically  from  my  China- 
man, and  now  write  them  with  misgivings.  About  Kwan- 
yin  much  might  be  written,  for  she  is  a  classic  saint,  or 
may  even  be  called  the  Madonna  of  the  Chinese  Budd- 
hists. She  is  the  woman  who  refused  to  enter  paradise 
so  long  as  any  human  being  is  excluded.  "  Never  will  I 
receive  individual  salvation,"  she  said,  and  still  remains 
outside  the  gates  of  heaven. 


72  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

The  census  of  1881  gave  Victoria  a  population  of 
862,246  and  registered  144  denominational  names.  Some 
of  these  names  in  the  official  Year-book  are  novel :  "  God- 
fearing," "  Saved  Sinners,"  "  Silent  Admirer,"  "  Free- 
Trade,"  "Nature,"  and  three  men  gave  their  name  as 
"  L.  S.  D."  To  the  "  church  of  Eli  Sands  "  five  belonged 
—  all  women.  This  I  suppose  to  be  the  eloquent  New 
York  Methodist  (1830-1868).  One  woman  records  her 
faith  as  a  "  Walkerite,"  Mr.  Walker  being  a  secularist 
lecturer  in  Melbourne.  And  there  was  one  "  Borrowite." 
Numerous  entries  indicate  the  fermentation  in  Australia, 
— "  Believers  in  parts  of  the  Bible,"  "  Liberty  of  Con- 
science," "  Liberal  Views,"  "Justice  and  Liberty,"  "Free 
Religion,"  "Natural  Religion,"  "Rational  Christians," 
" Reasonists,"  "Eclectic,"  "Neutral,"  "Humanitarian." 
There  were  53  "  Agnostics,"  37  "  Atheists,"  14  "  Infi- 
dels," while  7277  registered  themselves  as  without  creed 
or  sect.  The  number  of  those  who  rejected  every  form 
of  Christianity  was  20,000. 

The  Unitarians  numbered  about  one  thousand.  In  1851, 
when  registration  of  opinions  was  compulsory,  seventeen 
hundred  confessed  the  Unitarian  faith.  In  that  year  the 
Victorian  government  voted  to  divide  fifty  thousand 
pounds  among  all  the  churches  in  proportion  to  their 
members  (giving  the  five  talents  to  him  who  had  five  and 
the  two  to  him  who  had  two),  and  the  subsidy  was  contin- 
ued many  years.  Under  that  arrangement  the  Unitarians 
received  a  good  piece  of  property.  It  now  had  for  its 
minister  Mrs.  Webster,  who  began  preaching  there  as 
Miss  Turner.  She  is  a  sister  of  Henry  G.  Turner  of  the 
Commercial  Bank  of  Australia,  himself  a  literary  man 
and  editor  of  the  "Melbourne  Review."  Mrs.  Webster 
is  a  rationalistic  Unitarian,  and  her  discourses  are  very 


AUSTRALIAN  LOYALTY  73 

impressive.  I  had  the  pleasure  of  preaching  to  her 
society,  which  consists  of  educated  and  influential  fam- 
ilies. 

The  Australians  had  the  infirmity  of  most  colonists 
of  imitating  the  nomenclature  of  the  mother-country. 
One  finds  poor  little  villages  named  Brighton,  Chiswick, 
etc.,  and  the  imitation  extends  to  things  gastronomic.  At 
the  mayor's  banquet  in  Melbourne,  held  on  the  same  day 
as  that  of  the  Lord  Mayor  in  London,  nothing  could 
have  been  richer  than  the  hall  and  its  decorations, — 
the  flags  of  many  nations ;  but  the  imitativeness  of  the 
affair  was  amusing.  There  was  turtle  soup,  the  only 
occasion  on  which  I  saw  it  in  Australia.  Turtle  abounds 
in  Queensland,  but  the  neighbouring  colonies  care  little 
for  it,  and  not  at  all  for  the  delicious  kangaroo-tail  soup, 
nor  for  the  beche  de  mer,  but  stick  to  everything  English. 

The  Australians  go  beyond  the  English  in  loyalty.  Not 
only  Queen  Victoria's  birthday  but  that  of  the  Prince  of 
Wales  (now  Edward  VII)  was  a  general  holiday.  I  was 
told  that  there  were  more  holidays  in  Australia  than  in 
any  other  country. 

The  Marquis  of  Normanby,  then  (1883)  governor  of 
Victoria,  politely  entertained  me  in  his  palace  and  gave 
me  much  information  concerning  the  condition  of  Aus- 
tralia. At  Lord  Normanby's  drawing-room,  which  was 
brilliant,  I  met  my  London  friends,  Eustace  Smith,  M.  P., 
and  his  wife  and  daughter,  and  afterwards  travelled  with 
them  to  various  places.  Lord  and  Lady  Rosebery  min- 
gled very  affably  with  the  gay  company.  The  ladies  at 
the  drawing-room  were  all  in  full  court  costume. 

Throughout  Australia  gentlemen  often  wear  evening- 
dress  on  informal  occasions  when  it  would  be  omitted  in 
London,  but  ladies  even  in  large  evening  companies 


74  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

mostly  wear  the  convenient  and  high-necked  black  silk. 
I  have  remarked  in  various  parts  of  the  world  that  in 
every  country  the  sex  that  exceeds  the  other  in  numbers 
arrays  itself  finely,  the  minority  sex  dressing  plainly.  In 
Australia  the  women,  being  relatively  few,  are  sure  of  hus- 
bands without  resorting  to  decoration. 

A  great  deal  was  said  in  the  religious  press  about  "  lar- 
rikins," that  is,  insolent  rowdies.  The  crowd  appeared 
to  me  decent  and  orderly,  and  I  do  not  recall  having  ever 
seen  a  drunken  person  in  Australia.  In  fact  the  whole 
population  are  tea-drinkers.  The  nearest  approach  to 
"  larrikinism  "  I  observed  was  in  the  pious  press  itself. 

My  reputation  for  rationalism  had  been  made  for  me 
by  a  lecture  agent  selected  by  my  friends  Mr.  Jeffray 
and  Mr.  Turner.  Some  handling  of  religious  themes  was 
expected  of  me,  but  my  opening  lecture  (on  Darwin)  must 
have  revealed  to  the  keen-eared  sectarians  heresies  of 
which  I  was  not  yet  conscious.  I  afterwards  realized  that 
during  the  months  elapsed  since  my  last  sermon  in  Lon- 
don I  had  been  taking  stock  of  my  beliefs,  and  that 
especially  during  those  four  weeks  on  the  Pacific  my 
Theism  had  been  analyzed  severely.  What  I  now  de- 
scribe as  the  "  collectivist  deity  "  —  that  is,  a  mind  in 
nature  creative  and  controlling  the  evolutionary  forces  — 
was  rejected.  I  felt  myself  one  with  those  who  eighteen 
centuries  before  me  had  turned  from  worship  of  a  cruel 
cosmic  deity  to  the  suffering  god  — "  forsaken  "  by  the 
Power  he  had  trusted.  These  ideas  had  not  crystallized  in 
my  mind  sufficiently  for  me  to  formulate  them,  but  they 
had  affected  my  modifications  on  the  Australia  of  a  London 
lecture  on  Darwin.  In  giving  this  first  in  Australia  I  put 
my  worst  foot  foremost.  Melbourne  also  put  its  worst 
foot  foremost  by  giving  me  the  most  unscientific  hall  man 


CHEERFUL  MARTYRS  75 

ever  spoke  in.  Every  word  I  uttered  returned  in  star- 
tling echoes,  and  a  third  of  the  fine  audience  could  not 
hear.  For  the  next  lecture  I  had  the  desk  moved  to  a 
side  of  the  hall,  and  .was  fairly  heard.  The  first  lecture, 
however,  well  reported  in  the  admirable  "  Argus,"  elicited 
public  letters  vehemently  vindicating  the  functions  of  pain 
in  nature.  The  ablest  of  these  I  had  to  answer,  simply 
maintaining  that  no  advantages  could  justify  Omnipotent 
Love  in  selecting  pain  and  wholesale  torture  of  sensitive 
creatures  as  the  method  of  Evolution.  My  argument  was 
not  answered,  but  I  was  angrily  abused. 

My  case,  however,  was  of  slight  importance  compared 
with  that  of  Bishop  Moorhouse  and  the  Rev.  Charles 
Strong.  The  Bishop  of  Melbourne  and  the  minister  of 
the  Scots  church  were  admittedly  the  ablest  men  in  the 
Australian  pulpit.  They  were  "broad"  in  their  views, 
and  had  managed  to  get  gibbeted  together  as  "  pals  "  pro- 
pagating infidelity  in  the  southwestern  hemisphere.  They 
were  both  imprudent  enough  to  invite  me  to  their  houses, 
and  I  found  them  cheerful  martyrs,  quite  able  to  appre- 
ciate the  amusing  features  of  the  combination  of  Scotch 
Presbyterians  and  English  Hard-churchmen  by  whom 
they  were  pelted.  Strong's  offences  were  manifold.  He 
never  preached  dogmas ;  he  introduced  Emerson's  essays 
into  a  class  of  young  people  ;  and  he  invited  a  rationalist 
—  Judge  Higinbotham  of  the  Supreme  Court  —  to  lec- 
ture in  his  church  on  "  Science  and  Religion."  There  was 
another  offence  of  which  Mr.  Strong  did  not  tell  me,  and 
which  I  discovered  by  attending  his  grand  and  crowded 
church:  he  was  too  eloquent.  The  National  Church  of 
Scotland  to  which  he  belongs  is  united  with  the  two  others 
in  the  Victoria  Presbytery,  but  that  did  not  prevent  the 
latter  from  feeling  some  emotion  at  seeing  their  congre- 


76  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

gallons  becoming  thin  and  the  Scots  church  plethoric. 
Nor  did  they  fail  to  observe  that  notorious  liberal  thinkers 
had  pews  in  Strong's  church,  among  them  R.  J.  Jeffray, 
a  man  of  remarkable  ability  and  influence. 

The  Bishop  of  Melbourne  became  implicated  by  con- 
senting that  a  Broad-churchman,  Rev.  Mr.  Bromby, 
should  exchange  pulpits  with  Strong.  In  answer  to  ac- 
cusations the  bishop  delivered  an  address  before  the 
General  Assembly  so  full  of  catholicity  and  liberalism 
that  in  the  discussion  that  followed  his  lordship  was  fairly 
baited.  He  and  his  sister  gave  me  an  account  of  incidents 
suppressed  by  the  papers.  Some  of  the  laymen  who  arose 
to  speak  were  unable  to  do  so  because  of  their  excite- 
ment. One,  rising  to  call  another  to  order,  could  get  no 
farther  than  "  I  ca-ca-ca  "  —  The  bishop  entreated  the 
speakers  to  be  calm  and  polite ;  whereupon  an  opponent 
exclaimed,  "Your  lordship,  I  call  a  spade  a  spade." 
"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it,"  said  the  bishop ;  "  from  your  tone 
just  now  I  should  have  expected  you  to  call  the  spade  a 
sanguinary  shovel." 

Bishop  Moorhouse  was  entirely  too  fine  a  man  to  be  hus- 
tled by  ignorant  people.  They  were  just  at  him  again  when 
I  met  him.  Miss  Jennie  Lee  was  having  a  grand  success 
as  Jo  in  "  Bleak  House,"  and  offered  a  benefit  perform- 
ance for  a  charity  with  which  the  bishop  was  connected. 
The  appearance  of  his  name  as  patron  of  a  theatrical  per- 
formance was  the  signal  for  an  evangelical  fire  all  along 
the  line.  The  pious  hostility  to  the  bishop  was  augmented 
by  his  popularity  among  the  cultured  men  of  the  world, 
but  I  could  see  that  he  and  his  sister  were  tired  of  the 
provincial  tempests  in  teapots,  and  it  was  a  relief  to  both 
of  them  when  he  was  made  Bishop  of  Manchester. 

In  Australia  I  heard  of  several  cases  of  insanity  that 


BALLARAT  GOLD  MINES  77 

struck  me  as  "  antipodal."  One  was  literally  so  —  that  of 
a  lunatic  at  Sydney,  who,  maintaining  that  at  the  anti- 
podes all  customs  of  the  other  hemisphere  should  be  re- 
versed, held  his  knife  and  fork  by  the  blade  and  prongs, 
ate  with  their  handles,  wrote  from  the  bottom  of  a  sheet 
upwards,  and  so  on.  At  the  asylum  near  Hobart  there 
was  a  man  who  alternately  fancied  himself  Christ  and 
Antichrist,  his  changes  from  one  to  the  other  being 
sudden. 

I  saw  a  woman  at  Hobart  who  believed  herself  the  queen 
of  England.  She  went  about  freely,  and  was  treated  with 
a  certain  mock  respect. 

Bruntou  Stephens  wrote  a  striking  poem  on  a  case  said 
to  be  genuine,  —  that  of  a  shepherd  who  went  mad  on 
hearing  of  the  discovery  of  gold  in  a  field  where  he  had 
long  tended  herds,  and  which  he  had  sold  for  a  pittance. 

The  Australian  gold-fields  have  been  largely  populated 
with  men  who  made  each  his  pile  of  gold.  There  is  a 
story  that  at  Ballarat  some  were  seen  eating  sandwiches 
made  of  bread  and  bank-notes,  in  sheer  bravado.  The 
absence  of  any  near  market  depreciated  their  gold,  and 
they  scattered  it  like  chaff.  A  few  women  who  found 
their  way  out  among  the  tents  that  occupied  the  site  of 
Ballarat  in  1860  were  bid  for  and  bought  at  auction  for 
sixty  or  seventy  pounds  apiece. 

With  Eustace  Smith,  M.  P.,  I  sank  at  Ballarat  down 
a  narrow  aperture  eight  hundred  feet  into  the  earth.  We 
had  to  dress  for  the  descent  in  mud-spattered  garb,  huge 
boots,  and  horrible  hats,  insomuch  that  we  agreed  to  call 
each  other  "  bloke,"  and  to  divide  any  "  swag  "  we  could 
annex  in  the  mine.  Through  the  slimy  sides  of  the  grave 
we  descended  shuddering,  and  after  sundry  blood-curd- 
ling creakings  and  stoppages,  were  deposited  in  a  puddle. 


78  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Clutching  candles,  we  waded  through  white  mud-pure'e 
till  we  came  upon  men  who,  with  a  grunt  or  groan  at 
each  stroke,  picked  at  the  hard  quartz.  For  nine  hours' 
daily  toil  in  this  Hades  each  obtained  seven  shillings. 
The  workman's  eye  flashed  as  he  told  us,  adding  that  he 
had  had  about  enough  of  it. 

Then  we  went  over  the  adjacent  establishment,  where 
the  quartz  is  crushed  and  washed,  where  the  gold  dust  ad- 
heres to  the  carpets  and  blankets  over  which  the  yellow 
water  passes,  and  so  on  through  the  stages  by  which  the 
mint  is  finally  reached,  and  the  gold  goes  forth  with 
saintly  George  and  his  bright-scaled  dragon  stamped  on 
it.  That  serpent  on  the  English  sovereign  must  eat  the 
dust  all  its  days. 

The  first  Australian  digger  was  Edward  Hargraves, 
who,  having  been  reduced  to  sell  his  sheep  as  tallow  in 
Australia,  migrated  to  the  newly  discovered  gold-fields  of 
California.  He  did  not  do  well  there,  but  he  observed  the 
similarity  of  the  auriferous  soil  in  California  to  some  he 
had  noticed  in  New  South  Wales,  whither  he  returned. 
The  Hon.  Mr.  Mclntyre  of  the  Victorian  Parliament  told 
us  that  Captain  Devlin  met  Hargraves  in  California  and 
assisted  him  to  return  to  Sydney.  On  an  old  horse,  to 
obtain  which  he  had  borrowed  money  at  a  hundred  per 
cent,  Hargraves  travelled  to  the  Blue  Mountains,  telling 
every  one  he  met  of  his  hopes.  All  laughed  at  him  save 
one  Mrs.  Lister,  at  whose  inn  he  stopped  and  who  sent 
her  son  to  be  his  guide.  The  gold  was  found  and  Har- 
graves broke  into  a  laugh,  saying  to  young  Lister,  "  This 
is  a  memorable  day  in  the  history  of  New  South  Wales. 
For  this  day's  work  I  shall  be  created  a  baronet,  you  will 
be  knighted,  and  this  old  horse  will  be  stuffed  and  sent 
to  the  British  Museum ! "  But  he  was  plain  Edward 


PETER  LALOR  79 

Hargraves  still  (1883)  in  Sydney,  and  had  been  re- 
warded by  fifteen  thousand  pounds  for  the  Pactolus  he 
discovered  for  others. 

He  was  more  fortunate  than  the  discoverer  of  gold  in 
Victoria,  James  Esmond,  who  also  got  his  training  in 
California.  His  discovery  was  near  Ballarat,  at  a  place 
then  called  "  Poverty  Flat."  After  getting  a  fair  fortune, 
poor  Esmond  lost  it  all  in  trying  to  make  it  bigger. 

I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  the  Hon.  Peter  Lalor, 
speaker  of  the  Victorian  Parliament.  He  was  a  striking 
figure,  but  his  glory  was  the  stump  of  an  arm  lost  while 
fighting  against  the  Victorian  soldiery  at  the  Eureka  mine. 
The  government  (under  Governor  Hotham)  had  imposed 
on  each  digger  the  necessity  of  a  license  costing  thirty 
shillings  a  month.  A  man  was  liable  to  be  suddenly  ac- 
costed by  a  policeman  and  his  license  demanded,  and  if  he 
did  not  happen  to  have  it  about  him  was  at  once  chained 
to  a  log,  there  to  remain  for  trial  next  day.  The  diggers' 
blood  boiled  over  at  last,  and  in  the  way  of  old  English 
agitators  they  took  to  soldiering.  They  made  Peter  Lalor 
captain,  raised  a  flag,  —  the  Southern  Cross,  —  and  built 
a  stockade.  Government  blood  can  boil  too.  At  Ballarat 
the  soldiers  attacked  the  stockade,  and  after  a  consider- 
able number  of  lives  were  lost  on  both  sides,  the  matter 
was  settled.  The  leading  rioters  were  tried  and  acquitted ; 
the  license  was  reduced  to  one  pound,  then  to  ten  shillings, 
and  finally  to  five.  My  friend  Mr.  Jeffray,  who  was 
among  the  early  diggers,  told  me  that  once  when  some 
measure  was  before  the  legislature  involving  the  rights  of 
diggers,  Peter  Lalor,  in  speaking,  made  a  gesture  with  the 
stump  of  his  arm  which  elicited  a  wild  cheer  from  the 
assembly  and  helped  to  carry  his  case. 

So  far  as  I  could  learn,  comparatively  few  of  the  great 


80  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

fortunes  of  Australia  had  been  built  up  on  gold  mines. 
As  we  drove  through  Ballarat  many  houses  were  pointed 
out  far  sunken  in  the  earth  by  reason  of  the  excavations 
beneath  them,  and  the  wealth  excavated  appears  to  have 
rested  largely  on  a  similarly  insecure  foundation.  There 
are  true  legends  haunting  these  Australian  gold-fields 
which  sound  as  if  invented  by  some  sage  to  teach  the  vanity 
of  luck.  There  is  in  Victoria  a  town  of  ruined  houses 
—  Matolock.  Its  life  began  in  1864,  with  a  rush  of  dig- 
gers. The  last  inhabitant  left  in  1879.  In  that  fifteen 
years  Matolock  had  found  a  fortune  and  seen  it  turn  to 
dross.  The  diggers  lost  their  wits,  as  at  Ballarat,  lit  their 
pipes  with  bank-notes,  and  played  at  skittles  with  bottles 
of  champagne. 

Deeson,  the  poor  man  who  went  out  one  day  with  his 
children's  hungry  cries  in  his  ears  and  returned  with  the 
nugget  ("  Welcome  Stranger  ")  that  sold  for  ten  thousand 
pounds,  was  a  man  of  good  habits,  but  he  did  not  know  when 
he  had  enough.  He  invested  his  fortune  in  machinery  and 
lost  it  all.  He  toiled  on  through  life  in  poverty  a  hun- 
dred yards  from  the  spot  where  a  single  stroke  of  his  pick 
turned  up  a  fortune. 

My  visit  to  Tasmania  was  in  response  to  an  eminent 
young  barrister,  Hon.  A.  Inglis  Clark,  just  entering  on 
the  public  career  which  has  given  him  fame  as  a  jurist 
and  legislator.  (He  is  now  (1906)  attorney-general  of 
Tasmania.)  He  told  me  of  a  small  club  of  liberal  think- 
ers who  met  together  to  read  liberal  works  and  discuss 
important  subjects. 

The  novel  "For  the  Term  of  his  Natural  Life,"  by 
Marcus  Clarke,  with  its  tragical  power,  had  so  darkened 
that  island  that  I  shuddered  at  the  thought  of  visiting  it. 
And  on  the  voyage  thither  from  Melbourne  there  was  at 


CAMPBELLITES  81 

night  an  uncanny  phenomenon :  on  one  side  of  the  ship 
there  appeared  to  be  a  hundred  yards  distant  a  gloomy 
forest  past  which  we  sailed  for  hours.  While  walking  the 
deck  about  midnight  I  asked  some  passing  officer  what 
land  that  was ;  he  said  we  were  several  hundred  miles 
from  land. 

All  gruesome  imagination  about  Tasmania  vanished 
when  I  found  myself  in  the  delightful  home  circle  at  Rose- 
mont,  residence  of  the  Clarks  at  Hobart. 

Beautiful  for  situation  is  Hobart,  with  its  opalescent 
harbour  and  the  green  mountains  surrounding  it.  Over 
it  watches  Mount  Wellington,  whose  cloud-capped  summit 
I  could  not  reach,  but  from  whose  high  shoulder  I  saw  the 
finest  scene  I  beheld  in  the  colonies.  Still  more  interest- 
ing did  I  find  my  walks  and  talks  in  the  fields  with  my  phi- 
losophical friends,  at  every  step  seeing  new  and  curious 
plants,  flowers,  birds,  whose  near  acquaintance  I  was  en- 
abled to  make  by  their  scientific  interpreter,  Robert  M. 
Johnston.  His  intimacy  with  the  fauna  and  flora  and  the 
charm  of  his  personality  revived  in  me  recollections  of  my 
beloved  teachers,  Baird,  Thoreau,  Agassiz. 

On  Sunday  morning  I  selected  out  of  the  list  of 
churches  the  smallest  conventicle  in  Hobart,  simply  be- 
cause it  was  "  Campbellite."  Alexander  Campbell  was 
the  only  Virginian  who  ever  founded  a  sect,  a  little  brick 
chapel  in  our  town,  Fredericksburg,  being  by  tradition 
the  first  built  by  Campbellism.  I  never  entered  that  ex- 
cept to  hear  Gough  on  temperance,  but  now  availed 
myself  of  my  first  opportunity  to  hear  a  "  Campbellite " 
sermon.  It  turned  out,  however,  that  there  was  no 
preacher.  A  shipwright  and  a  saddler  spoke  briefly  to 
about  thirty  people,  and  one  or  two  others  said  a  few 
words;  but  all  sang  with  fervour  familiar  hymns.  It 


82  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

was  all  so  humble  as  to  be  touching,  and  the  pathos  was 
increased  by  the  little  fraternity's  history,  which  I  had 
the  curiosity  to  search  out.  Some  years  before  there 
had  come  to  Hobart  an  evangelist  from  Kentucky.  He 
had  a  rapturous  kind  of  eloquence,  also  a  magnetic  per- 
sonality ;  he  drew  large  audiences,  and  filled  some  with 
the  enthusiasm  that  built  for  him  this  little  chapel. 
After  a  time  family  affairs  called  him  back  to  Ken- 
tucky, but  he  left  a  promise  that  he  would  return.  But 
year  after  year  passed  without  their  hearing  from  him ; 
some  of  the  fathers  fell  asleep;  their  children  asked, 
"  Where  is  the  promise  of  his  coming  ?  "  and  fell  away ; 
and  only  a  few  of  the  old  congregation  remained.  These 
poor  people  still  cherished  the  faith  that  their  inspired 
founder  would  come  again  to  them.  I  had  reasons  for 
believing  that  he  would  never  return. 

Ah,  my  poor  "  Campbellite  "  brothers,  how  many  times 
in  later  years  have  I  remembered  you  sitting  there  in 
Hobart  and  keeping  alive  the  memory  of  your  leader! 
As  I  have  strolled  through  Concord  and  about  Walden, 
remembering  how  we  walked  there  with  Emerson  and 
Thoreau,  and  about  London,  meeting  no  more  the  morning 
face  of  Browning  or  the  deep  eyes  of  Carlyle  —  but  the 
list  would  be  long  of  the  bereavements  that  remind  me 
of  those  lowly  watchers  for  their  Beloved,  who  would 
never  return. 

After  listening  to  the  Campbellites  we  walked  to  a  hill, 
which  having  no  name  I  insisted  should  be  called  Tran- 
sit Hill.  On  this  pleasant  elevation,  covered  with  sward, 
many  children  were  playing  around  the  queer  iron  pillar 
four  feet  high  and  the  square  flat  stone  which  the  Amer- 
ican astronomers  set  there  when  they  observed  the  transit 
of  Venus.  In  climbing  this  height  and  the  great  Mount 


AUSTRALIAN  BIRDS  83 

Nelson,  we  made  our  way  over  the  fallen  trunks  of 
enormous  tree  ferns  which  were  piled  one  on  another, 
and  looked  like  huge  saurians. 

Agassiz  said  to  our  class  at  Cambridge,  "There  are 
jokes  in  nature."  One  or  two  examples  I  remarked  in 
the  fauna  of  Australia.  There  is  a  funny  pertness  in  the 
"hand-fish"  that  climbs  up  on  the  beach  and  props 
itself  on  its  fingers  and  inspects  one  curiously.  The 
"  laughing-jackass "  cannot  be  heard  without  responsive 
laughter,  especially  if  one  can  see  the  bird  while  it  is 
performing,  for  it  seems  so  very  solemn  just  before  and 
after  it  has  filled  the  air  with  inextinguishable  laughter. 
The  he-haw  inhalations  ending  the  laugh  suggest  the 
"  jackass."  It  seems  a  kind  of  burly  kingfisher,  dressed 
in  white  and  brown,  with  slightly  crested  head  and  a 
remarkably  bright  eye.  It  is  never  killed  —  not  in 
Victoria  because  its  skill  in  destroying  snakes  protects 
it  legally,  and  in  other  colonies  a  friendly  feeling  pro- 
tects it.  In  the  bush  it  is  called  the  "settler's  clock," 
because  it  sings  —  though  not  exclusively  —  at  sunrise 
and  sunset. 

There  is  a  general  belief  that  the  Australian  birds, 
though  fine  in  plumage,  are  poor  songsters,  and  when 
pretty  songs  are  heard  in  the  Botanical  Gardens  it  is 
common  to  hear  them  ascribed  to  imported  varieties. 
But  in  this  the  Australians  are  in  danger  of  falling 
into  the  mistake  that  the  old  Virginians  made  in  calling 
their  best  songster  the  "English  mockingbird."  In  the 
Australian  woods  and  gardens  are  some  notes  not  to  be 
heard  elsewhere :  those  of  the  honey-eater,  which  is  like 
touches  on  a  guitar ;  the  bell-bird,  hearing  whose  tinkle 
a  wanderer,  it  is  said,  knows  that  water  is  near ;  and  the 
flute-like  notes  of  the  magpie.  The  magpie  is  the  pet  of 


84  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

colonial  homes  and  is  taught  songs.  In  Hobart  I  was 
awakened  the  morning  after  my  arrival  by  a  neigh- 
bouring magpie,  whose  matin  was  "  Polly,  put  the  kettle 
on,"  to  which  another  responded  with  half  the  theme 
of  "  The  Bould  Soldier  Boy."  As  to  plumage,  the  won- 
derful decoration  of  the  lyre-bird  is  hardly  paralleled ; 
but  I  was  especially  interested  in  the  "  firetail,"  because 
of  the  native  fancy  that  the  touch  of  pure  fire  on  its  tail 
came  through  its  ancestors  having  been  scorched  in 
saving  an  ember  for  man  when  some  demon  was  robbing 
him  of  the  Promethean  blessing. 

In  California  I  had  been  admonished  to  be  careful 
about  the  "Tasmanian  Devils."  At  Auckland  I  heard 
this  animal  described  as  fierce,  untamable,  dangerous.  At 
Sydney  the  Tasmanian  Devil  was  described  as  fierce  but 
not  often  encountered  ;  at  Melbourne  he  diminished  into 
"  an  ugly  little  beast."  In  Tasmania  the  little  nocturnal 
creature  is  very  timid  and  so  rare  that  I  sought  it  in  vain. 
Sic  transit  gloria  diabolorum. 

The  queerest  thing  I  saw  was  the  so-called  "  bulrush 
caterpillar  "  or  "  vegetable  caterpillar."  This  also  is  found 
in  New  Zealand,  where  the  natives  name  it  "  Aweto-Ho- 
tete;"  but  two  specimens  found  in  Tasmania  were  given 
me  by  the  librarian  of  Hobart,  Alfred  Taylor,  to  whom  I 
am  indebted  for  the  facts  about  it.  The  plant  is  a  fungus, 
a  sphseria,  which  grows  seven  or  eight  inches  above  the 
ground,  generally  in  a  single  stem,  round,  and  curving  at 
the  end  like  a  serpent.  This  end  is  thickly  covered  with 
brown  seed  for  some  three  inches.  It  grows  near  the  root 
of  a  particular  tree,  the  "  rata."  When  pulled  up  its 
single  root  is  found  to  consist  of  a  large  caterpillar  three 
inches  long,  which  is  solid  wood.  Every  detail  of  this 
grub  is  preserved.  The  sphseria  always  grows  out  of  the 


EX-CONVICTS  85 

nape  of  the  neck,  strikes  root,  and  completely  turns  the  in- 
terior of  the  creature  into  its  own  substance.  Externally 
the  shell  is  left  intact,  no  smaller  rootlet  appearing  any- 
where. The  aborigines  in  New  Zealand  eat  this  pure 
white  grub,  and  Mr.  Taylor  said  that  taken  raw  it  is  de- 
licious. They  also  burn  the  caterpillar-root  and  rub  it 
into  their  tattoo  wounds.  A  good  many  white  people  be- 
lieve that  the  plant  actually  develops  the  caterpillar  form, 
and  we  cannot  laugh  much  at  our  ancestors  who  believed 
in  the  vegetable  Scythian  Lamb  and  the  Mandrake  Man, 
of  which  last  a  specimen  is  preserved  at  London  in  the 
Sloane  Museum. 

The  great  surprise  that  awaited  me  in  Tasmania  was 
its  representative  character  in  an  important  feature  of 
civilization.  It  is  probable  that  the  thrilling  novel  of 
Marcus  Clarke,  "  For  the  Term  of  His  Natural  Life,"  with 
its  terrible  pictures  of  prison  life  at  Norfolk  Island,  had 
something  to  do  with  making  the  institution  compara- 
tively excellent,  —  I  went  through  it  observingly,  —  but 
also  with  the  steady  emptying  of  it  by  the  passing  of  its 
inmates  to  the  freedom  of  good  service  in  Tasmania.  The 
stout  arms  and  strong  passions  which  in  the  crowded  cities 
of  Great  Britain  were  trained  only  to  crime  had  here  made 
Tasmania  into  a  garden.  By  good  behaviour  and  service 
the  exiles  after  a  time  obtained  release  from  penal  labour, 
though  not  liberty  to  leave  Tasmania.  With  some  little 
means  to  begin  with  they  generally  become  useful  inhabit- 
ants, and  rarely  return  to  crime.  A  lady  told  me  that 
the  best  nurse  for  her  children  she  ever  had  was  a  young 
woman  who,  as  she  afterwards  discovered,  had  been  trans- 
ported from  England  for  killing  her  illegitimate  child.  A 
good  many  of  the  sentences  are  for  limited  periods,  but 
most  of  the  exiles  prefer  to  remain  in  Tasmania. 


86  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Numerous  stories  are  told  about  these  criminals.  One 
was  of  an  English  judge  who  visited  Hobart,  and  went 
into  a  barber-shop.  The  barber  while  shaving  him  said, 
"Judge,  you  don't  remember  me."  The  judge  said  he 
did  not,  and  the  barber  continued,  "  I  have  the  advantage 
of  your  honour;  you  gave  me  six  years  out  here  !  "  The 
razor  moved  gently,  however,  over  the  judge's  throat,  and 
he  paid  a  good  fee  for  a  good  story  to  tell  in  London. 

I  cannot  vouch  for  the  exactness  of  that  incident,  but 
one  occurred  in  my  own  experience.  In  company  with  a 
young  Englishman  I  drove  about  in  a  thinly  settled  part 
of  Tasmania.  At  noon  we  halted  at  a  small  tavern  to 
get  refreshments  for  ourselves  and  our  horse.  In  the 
parlour  we  found  two  respectable  men  with  greyish  hair 
and  spectacles,  playing  cribbage.  In  conversation  we  in- 
quired something  about  convicts  said  to  be  working  in 
that  district,  and  they  said  there  were  a  good  many  and 
doing  well.  One  of  these  pleasant  persons  went  out  with 
my  companion  to  see  about  our  horse  ;  the  other  one,  when 
we  were  alone,  advised  me  to  be  careful  how  I  talked 
about  convicts,  adding,  "That  man  I  was  playing  with 
came  out  from  England  under  unpleasant  circumstances.'' 
After  our  good  luncheon  and  departure,  my  companion 
told  me  that  the  man  who  went  with  him  gave  the  same 
advice,  remarking  that  his  opponent  at  cribbage  had  come 
out  originally  as  a  convict.  Of  course  I  cannot  be  certain 
that  these  elderly  persons  had  not  devised  a  little  comedy 
for  the  entertainment  of  inquisitive  strangers. 

The  last  of  the  Tasmanians  has  perished.  In  English 
imaginations  the  natives  had  loomed  up  into  ferocious  crea- 
tures ;  the  phrase  "  Native  Devils  "  paralleled  "  Tasmanian 
Devils."  A  considerable  number  of  troops  were  sent  out  to 
search  for  natives,  but  could  find  none.  At  last  they  made 


EXTINCTION  OF  TASMANIANS  87 

a  cordon  across  one  end  of  Tasmania  and  advanced  day 
by  day  across  the  whole  island,  catching  in  their  net  two 
aged  people !  Their  photographs  were  said  to  be  those  of 
the  native  king  and  queen :  the  faces  are  haggard  and  dis- 
figured by  want  and  woe. 

The  extermination  of  a  race  by  no  means  bloodthirsty 
was  not  due  to  British  violence,  but  to  ignorant  and  puri- 
tanical missions.  The  earlier  missionaries  were  self-sacri- 
ficing, but  as  of  old  it  was  not  the  worldly  pagan  em- 
perors who  persecuted,  but  the  religious  ones,  so  it  was 
those  missionaries  who  took  their  dogmas  seriously  who 
did  the  great  mischief  in  Tasmania.  In  1834,  as  Aus- 
tralian annals  record,  "a  fund  was  raised  in  England 
for  the  purpose  of  clothing  the  native  women.  Among 
the  subscribers  were  the  Duchess  of  Kent,  Lady  Noel 
Byron,  and  the  Hon.  Mrs.  Wilbraham."  It  was  these 
pious  prudes  who  killed  off  the  Tasmanians.  It  was  the 
belief  of  every  scientific  man  I  met  that  they  all  were 
attacked  by  tuberculosis  soon  after  they  put  on  clothing. 

I  lectured  in  various  parts  of  Tasmania,  and  had  the 
honour  of  being  attacked  in  the  papers  by  orthodox  writers. 
My  lectures  were  not  theological,  but  my  account  of  Lon- 
don, my  sketches  of  scientific  men,  and  the  fact  that  I 
was  there  by  invitation  of  distinguished  rationalists  gave 
sufficient  ground  for  this  clerical  imprudence,  which  filled 
my  halls  wherever  I  went. 

One  thing  especially  impressed  me  in  the  religious 
atmosphere  throughout  Australia:  there  was  a  friendly 
alliance  between  Freethinkers  and  Spiritualists.  The 
whole  population  seemed  to  have  their  eyes  set  inviolably 
on  the  future  life.  Most  of  them  or  their  fathers  had 
migrated  to  that  distant  shore  to  seek  their  fortunes,  and 
then  to  return  to  the  old  threshold  and  the  loved  hearts 


88  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

at  home.  The  emigrants  were  no  doubt  mostly  of  san- 
guine temperament,  eagerly  looking  forward,  and  per- 
haps there  may  have  been  thus  engendered  the  spirit 
that  "  never  is,  but  always  to  be,  blest." 

I  was  shown  a  paper  read  to  the  club  by  the  natu- 
ralist Robert  M.  Johnston,  on  "  Common  Fungoid  Illu- 
sions," accompanied  by  a  diagram  showing  the  relative 
value  of  observations,  as  determined  by  the  nature  of  the 
testimony  and  other  conditions  under  which  the  obser- 
vations are  made.  There  are  shown  the  gradations  from 
the  scientific  evidence,  where  all  the  senses  in  their  health, 
specially  trained,  in  good  position,  equipped  with  tested 
instruments,  conduct  the  inquiry,  through  observations 
made  where  these  aids  one  after  another  fail,  down  to 
the  lowest  degree,  the  zero  of  intelligence  —  insanity. 
"  The  insane  are  forced  by  disease  to  live  always  within 
a  world  of  wonders  such  as  those  sought  after  at  times  by 
the  ignorant." 

On  my  voyage  from  Tasmania  I  read  three  novelettes 
about  ideal  islands  or  societies,  — "The  Garden  of  Eden," 
"The  Island  of  Duhitadiva"  (by  James  Smith),  "A  Few 
Hours  in  a  Far-off  Age  "  (by  Mrs.  H.  A.  Dugdale),  and 
closed  them  all  with  a  feeling  that  it  would  suffice  could 
I  dwell  with  that  circle  of  aspiring  spirits  at  Hobart  to 
whom  I  had  just  bidden  a  last  farewell. 

Between  Melbourne  and  Sydney  one  travels  nearly  a 
day  amid  gum-trees,  whose  trunks,  according  to  one's 
mood,  may  seem  silvery  or  blanched  in  death.  Many  of 
them  are  indeed  dead,  girdled  by  the  farmers.  The  bush 
has  a  desolate  look.  In  the  grey  morning,  as  our  train 
passed,  a  large  "  native  bear  "  was  seen  clasping  a  tele- 
graph pole.  As  to  bears  are  attributed  a  passion  for  honey, 
I  believed  it  was  a  cub  deluded  into  the  belief  that  the 


INAPPROPRIATE   NAMES  89 

humming  of  the  wires  indicated  the  proximity  of  a  hive. 
My  theory  was  speedily  upset  by  the  reminder  that  the 
"  native  bear  "  is  no  bear  at  all,  but  a  marsupial  (koala) ; 
however,  it  loves  fruit,  and  possibly  honey.  A  way  the 
Australians  have  of  calling  things  by  inappropriate  names 
is  inconvenient.  Their  bear  is  no  bear,  their  whiting  fish 
is  no  fish,  their  flying  fox  is  only  a  big  bat,  their  cherry 
is  no  cherry.  Most  of  us  have  heard  it  reported  that 
"Australia  is  a  place  where  the  oysters  grow  on  trees, 
the  fences  are  made  of  mahogany,  and  cherries  grow  with 
their  stones  outside."  There  is  no  real  mahogany-tree 
in  the  country,  so  far  as  I  could  learn;  the  so-called 
"  cherry  "  is  a  kind  of  cypress  whose  stones  do  grow  out- 
side its  red  berry;  and  the  truth  of  the  oyster  saying 
is  that  about  some  harbours  oysters  cover  the  beach  rocks 
and  occasionally  the  roots  and  fallen  trunks  of  trees  grow- 
ing near  the  water. 

When  I  was  seated  at  the  hospitable  table  of  Bishop 
Moorhouse  and  listening  to  Rev.  Charles  Strong  in  Mel- 
bourne, I  little  supposed  that  I  should  ever  add  to  the 
troubles  of  either  of  those  gentlemen ;  still  less  that  they 
would  ever  add  to  mine.  So,  however,  it  came  about.  Be- 
fore my  arrival  in  Melbourne  the  agent  into  whose  hands 
my  scheme  of  lectures  had  been  entrusted  had  issued  cir- 
culars that  when  I  saw  them  took  my  breath  away.  I 
was  proclaimed  as  "  the  famous  Champion  of  Civil  and 
Religious  Liberty,"  etc.,  and  all  this  was  succeeded  by 
the  following  quotations  :  — 

As  yet  struggles  the  twelfth  hour  of  the  Night. 
Birds  of  darkness  are  on  the  wing ;  spectres  uprear ;  the 
dead  walk  ;  the  living  dream.  Thou,  Eternal  Providence, 
wilt  make  the  Day  dawn.  —  Jean  Paul. 

God   speed   Mr.  Justice  Higinbotham,  and  teach  him, 


90  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

by  methods  which  we  cannot  follow,  secrets   of  divine 
truth   which   may  glorify  his    Master  and   ours.    He   is 
still  our  brother  by  virtue  of  his  true  love  for  Christ.  — 
Bishop  Moorhouse. 

There  are  plain  enough  indications  —  witness  the 
bringing  out  of  Mr.  Moncure  Con  way  —  that  sooner  or 
later  the  Battle  must  come.  —  Rev.  D.  S.  M'Eachran. 

In  view  of  recent  events  and  of  the  present  ferment 
in  the  public  mind,  Mr.  Conway's  visit  to  this  city  ap- 
pears to  be  very  opportune.  —  The  Argus. 

The  three  quotations  following  that  from  Jean  Paul 
Richter  fairly  conscripted  me  into  the  vanguard  of  an 
imminent  battle  of  whose  conditions  I  knew  nothing. 
The  very  names  of  the  four  generals  were  given.  My 
lectures  closed  at  Melbourne  on  October  16,  and  on  No- 
vember 12  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Victoria  was  to  meet.  The  Melbourne  organ 
of  the  anti-Strong  party,  "  Daily  Telegraph  "  (which  had 
ingeniously  utilized  my  statements),  detached  from  their 
context,  to  fling  at  Moorhouse  and  Strong,  mixed  my 
humble  self  up  with  those  leaders  on  the  morning  of  the 
General  Assembly's  meeting  in  an  adroit  leader.  I  cite  a 
specimen :  — 

The  chief  disturbing  influence  which  threatens  the  Pres- 
byterian Assembly  comes  from  outside.  One,  at  least,  of 
our  contemporaries  undertook  long  ago  the  cheerful  task 
of  writing  the  Presbyterian  Church  out  of  existence. 
The  only  thing  it  has  yet  succeeded  in  destroying  is  its 
own  literary  reputation  and  the  patience  of  its  readers ; 
still  it  sticks  to  its  curious  policy  with  a  perseverance 
worthy  of  a  better  cause.  Mr.  Moncure  D.  Conway's 
cheerful  theory  about  the  churches  is  that  they  are  inspired 
and  kept  going  by  the  devil.  He  "keeps  the  churches 
flourishing,"  and  "  provides  Christians  with  their  reli- 
gion." It  would  "be  impossible,"  Mr.  Moncure  D.  Con- 


MY  FAME  IN  SYDNEY  91 

way  assures  mankind,  "for  any  church  to  last  long  without 
the  devil"  Our  contemporary  publishes  this  remarkable 
theory  of  the  origin  and  nature  of  churches  to  the  world, 
and  evidently  itself  acts  upon  it. 

The  statement  in  my  lecture  on  Demon ology,  thus  clipped 
up  for  a  purpose,  was  an  account  of  the  part  played  by 
Satan  and  Antichrist  in  ancient  times  in  terrorizing  the 
people,  and  the  degree  to  which  in  recent  times  "  the  ter- 
rors of  the  Law  "  stimulated  revivals.  I  invited  an  inter- 
view with  a  representative  of  the  "Melbourne  Argus  "  for 
the  purpose  of  relieving  the  bishop  and  Mr.  Strong  from 
any  participation  in  my  views,  and  went  off  to  Sydney 
with  sorrow  that  I  should  be  made  to  add  any  weight  to 
the  millstone  around  their  neck. 

But  when  I  reached  Sydney  I  found  reason  for  dismay 
at  the  millstone  those  gentlemen  had  hung  around  my  neck. 
The  "  Melbourne  Daily  Telegraph "  and  other  sectarian 
organs,  also  an  ingenious  Melbourne  correspondent  of  the 
"  Sydney  Herald,"  had  given  me  a  fame  in  Sydney  ludi- 
crously disproportionate  to  my  deserts ;  and  though  prob- 
ably none  of  my  accusers  reverenced  the  character  of 
Jesus  more  than  I  did,  I  found  myself  a  full-blown  apos- 
tle of  Antichrist.  The  eyes  of  all  Australia,  and  especially 
of  Sydney,  were  fixed  on  the  General  Assembly  that  met 
for  combat  November  12,  and  on  the  evening  of  November 
13  my  opening  lecture  in  Sydney  had  to  be  given.  The 
subject  I  had  announced  was  "  Toleration  of  Opinion,  or 
Pleas  for  Persecution."  My  first  lecture  in  Melbourne 
was  on  "  The  Pre-Darwinite  and  Post-Darwinite  World." 
Although  introduced  with  personal  recollections  of  Darwin 
that  were  applauded,  my  statement  of  the  extent  to  which 
religious  philosophy  had  been  affected  by  his  great  gener- 
alization excited  an  outburst  in  the  sectarian  organs,  and 


92  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

I  resolved  to  put  my  right  foot  foremost  in  Sydney.  I  had 
taken  the  utmost  pains  to  make  my  lecture  on  Toleration 
conciliatory.  It  was  given  in  Protestant  Hall,  the  chief 
one  in  Sydney,  to  a  good  audience  which  included  the  Pre- 
mier, Sir  Joseph  Parkes,  other  ministers,  and  eminent 
citizens.  But  hardly  had  I  given  the  exordium  when 
crowds  assembled  at  the  doors  and  windows,  shouting  Sal- 
vation Army  hymns.  Each  crowd  sang  a  different  hymn, 
the  result  being  a  confusion  of  yells  which  my  voice  could 
hardly  surmount.  When,  however,  these  noisy  saints  dis- 
covered that  my  voice  was  not  quite  drowned,  some  of 
them  repaired  to  a  bowling  alley  adjoining  a  wall  of  the 
hall  and  zealously  rolled  the  balls.1 

Care  was  taken  by  the  managers  of  Protestant  Hall 
that  the  annoyance  should  not  be  repeated,  but  the  balls 
went  on  rolling  in  the  "  Sydney  Herald,"  where  in  anony- 
mous letters  my  lectures  were  distorted.  For  instance,  I 
gave  a  sketch  of  Cardinal  Newman,  and  of  my  going  some 
distance  on  a  terribly  wintry  morning  at  daybreak  to  his 
oratory  (Birmingham),  where  he  usually  conducted  mass, 

1  My  case,  however,  was  mild  compared  with  that  of  an  Orangeman  who 
ventured  to  speak  in  the  hall  shortly  before.  This  was  at  a  Home  Rule 
meeting  gathered  to  listen  to  John  Redmond,  M.  P.  Redmond's  thrilling 
eloquence  had  excited  his  Irish  audience  to  the  last  degree  of  intensity.  After 
he  had  finished,  the  bland  Irish  chairman  said  that  if  any  one  wanted  to 
put  a  question  Mr.  Redmond  would  answer  it.  Whereupon  the  Orange- 
man rose  and  said  sharply,  "  I  wish  to  put  a  question."  He  was  invited  to 
the  platform,  where  he  began  some  sharp  criticisms,  when  an  excited  Home 
Ruler  on  the  platform  steps  jumped  up  and  felled  him.  He  lay  apparently 
dead,  and  had  to  be  carried  out  into  a  back  room,  a  doctor  following.  There 
•was  a  wild  scene,  the  crowd  rising  up  and  yelling  "  fair  play, "  "  served  him 
right,"  etc.  It  was  long  before  quiet  could  be  restored.  The  little  chair- 
man, totally  without  humour,  then  said  politely,  "Does  any  other  gentleman 
wish  to  ask  a  question  ?  "  No  one  responded.  I  afterwards  met  Mr.  Red- 
mond, who  told  me  that  this  story  was  very  near  the  fact. 


FRIENDS  AND   ENTERTAINERS  93 

though  hardly  expecting  that  the  aged  man  would  arise  on 
such  a  bitter  morning,  substitutes  being  at  hand.  His  pre- 
sence on  that  occasion,  when  only  two  or  three  attended, 
was  mentioned  with  admiration,  and  every  word  I  said 
was  to  his  credit.  Yet  some  silly  —  or  malicious  —  Catho- 
lic described  what  I  said  as  an  attack  on  the  cardinal ! 
Though  other  statements  about  my  twelve  lectures  were 
equally  misleading,  this  particular  one  annoyed  me  most 
because  it  had  been  a  sort  of  specialty  of  my  ministry  for 
thirty  years  to  maintain  that  Protestantism,  theologically 
and  morally,  was  a  relapse  into  the  stony  ages  from  the 
height  to  which  evolution  had  carried  Catholicism,  with 
its  merry  Sunday,  antiquated  dogmas,  exaltation  of  a 
feminine  divinity,  and  cult  of  the  fine  arts. 

But  a  good  many  in  Sydney  were  ashamed  of  its  hor- 
nets. The  chief  club  (Union)  elected  me  an  honorary 
member,  and  I  met  there  cultured  gentlemen,  besides 
being  able  to  escape  from  the  poor  "  chief  hotel "  to  good 
accommodations  in  the  club.  I  was  invited  to  give  the 
annual  lecture  before  the  philosophical  and  scientific 
institution,  and  for  some  days  was  the  guest  of  the  admir- 
able Justice  Windeyer,  who  presided  on  that  occasion. 
Several  ladies  whom  I  had  known  in  London,  married  in 
Sydney  to  excellent  men,  entertained  me  in  their  houses, 
arranged  pretty  excursions  for  me,  and  introduced  me 
to  the  best  people.  The  Fates,  who  during  my  first  week 
in  Sydney  were  ugly  as  Furies,  presently  took  on  the 
lineaments  of  the  Windeyer  ladies,  of  Mrs.  Heron,  Mrs. 
Harris,  and  in  their  beautiful  homes  my  hurts  were  healed. 

In  fact  I  began  to  excuse  the  hornets.  As  a  lecturer  I 
was  a  disappointment  to  the  average  lecture-goer ;  I  was 
not  a  "  spell-binder,"  taking  up  large  world-themes,  with 
a  millennial  magic-lantern  throwing  on  the  popular  eye 


94  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

visions  of  England,  America,  Australia,  transfigured  in 
the  near  future.  My  mission,  if  I  had  any,  was  still  to 
individual  minds.  I  lectured  about  the  great  literary  and 
scientific  men  whom  I  had  known  in  Europe  and  America, 
trying  to  interpret  their  influence  and  their  contributions 
to  thought  and  knowledge.  In  a  sense  these  were  to  the 
masses  another-worldly  interests,  while  I  was  not  other- 
worldly enough  in  religion.  An  eminent  scholar  said  to 
me,  "  Nearly  every  thinker  in  Sydney  agrees  with  you,  but 
we  do  not  speak  publicly  on  such  subjects.  Why  reason 
with  people  who  do  not  know  the  meaning  of  reason  ?  " 

The  fusion  of  Freethought  and  Spiritualism  (or  Theoso- 
phy),  elsewhere  referred  to,  had  become  so  complete  in 
Sydney  that  an  orator  combined  both  in  his  lectures  in  a 
theatre  every  Sunday  evening.  I  regretted  not  hearing 
this  able  man,  Charles  Bright,  who  insisted  that  I  should 
take  his  place  on  my  only  remaining  Sunday.  The  theatre 
was  crowded,  more  than  three  thousand  being  present. 
This  strange  movement  had,  I  was  told,  almost  swallowed 
up  Unitarianism.  Thewidow  of  the  latest  Unitarian  min- 
ister (Mr.  Pillars)  had  married  Charles  Bright,  and  had 
been  occasionally  lecturing  for  her  husband  in  the  theatre 
with  much  effect.  About  the  same  time  a  female  evan- 
gelist, Mrs.  Hammond,  was  drawing  larger  crowds  than 
any  regular  preacher  attracted.  This  revivalist  was  preach- 
ing in  Sydney  while  I  was  there,  and  in  my  fifth  lecture 
("  Woman  and  Evolution ")  I  referred  to  her  apostolate 
as  showing  how  far  society  had  travelled  away  from  the 
Pauline  doctrine  against  women  preachers,  and  congratu- 
lated the  city  on  having  two  eloquent  ladies  in  the  reli- 
gious conflict  of  the  time. 

Tn  the  Museum  I  saw  the  newly  discovered  skull  of  the 
Thylacoles.  When  Professor  Owen  was  in  Australia  he 


BOTANY   BAY  95 

was  shown  a  small  bone  which  puzzled  his  friend  Dr. 
George  Bennett  (who  repeated  to  me  the  story)  and  other 
naturalists  in  Sydney.  Owen  drew  an  outline  of  the  head 
of  the  unknown  animal  suggested  to  him  by  the  bone.  I 
was  able  to  compare  the  drawing  with  the  complete  skull 
(found  in  1881),  and  the  two  —  especially  the  jaws  —  con- 
formed remarkably. 

In  the  admirable  Zoological  Gardens  I  saw  some  large 
ground  parrots,  a  New  Zealand  bird  once  of  good  char- 
acter, but  sadly  demoralized  by  the  introduction  of  Eng- 
lish sheep.  For  a  long  time  it  contented  itself  with  thefts 
of  fleece,  but  at  length  took  to  perching  on  the  back  of 
sheep  and  digging  down  till  it  drew  out  the  kidneys.  This 
was  the  only  part  of  the  sheep  it  seemed  to  relish.  It 
may  have  been  once  a  pretty  parrot,  but  those  I  saw  were 
ugly  assassins,  the  breast  coloured  like  rusty  iron.  I 
showed  my  horror  of  their  crime  by  lunching  on  cold 
parrot  at  the  first  opportunity,  and  during  the  indiges- 
tion speculated  on  the  moral  effect  likely  to  be  produced 
on  Anglo-Saxon  humanity  by  transplantation  amid  the 
strange  fauna  of  the  southwestern  hemisphere. 

Some  friends  took  me  on  an  afternoon  excursion  down 
the  harbour  to  Botany  Bay.  I  thought  it  a  gruesome  direc- 
tion, but  found  to  my  amazement  that  Botany  Bay  was  not 
and  never  had  been  a  convict  settlement.  When  anciently 
the  first  shipload  of  convicts  arrived,  it  was  decided  that 
the  place  would  not  answer  at  all,  and  the  prison  was 
erected  far  away  near  Darling  Point.  But  consignments 
from  England,  where  the  change  was  for  a  time  unknown, 
continued  to  be  directed  to  Botany  Bay.  In  this  way  the 
name  of  a  favourite  bathing  place  has  become  proverbial 
for  the  wretchedness  that  is  nearer  to  the  sweet  name 
"  Darling."  Here,  then,  was  another  parable ! 


96  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Justice  Windeyer,  a  learned  Freethinker  and  Spirit- 
ualist, told  me  that  a  large  number  of  those  who  listened 
with  highest  appreciation  to  my  lectures  still  remarked 
with  regret  the  absence  from  them  of  anything  relating 
to  the  spirit-world.  I  discovered  that  the  same  "  medium," 
Foster,  who  twenty-five  years  before  had  made  a  ridiculous 
fiasco  in  my  house  in  Cincinnati,  had  afterwards  con- 
verted multitudes  in  Australia.  After  his  lectures,  said 
Justice  Windeyer,  he  gave  all  who  came  up  to  him  mes- 
sages from  their  departed  friends,  the  recipients  bursting 
into  exclamations  of  joy  and  happy  tears.  Another  very 
learned  gentleman,  Professor  John  Smith,  was  inclined  to 
credit  the  marvels  of  Madame  Blavatsky,  and  made  me 
promise  to  visit  her  in  India  and  test  her  powers. 

I  derived  from  my  experiences  in  Australia  a  suspicion 
that  veracity  affects  but  little  beliefs  involving  the  im- 
mediate happiness  of  the  world.  If  an  error  increases 
what  the  mass  of  men  deem  their  well-being  and  happi- 
ness, no  demonstration  of  its  erroneousness  can  do  more 
than  cause  it  to  cast  an  old  skin  and  slip  into  another. 
One  of  my  lectures  in  Sydney  was  on  "  The  New  Pro- 
metheus, or  the  Martyrdom  of  Thought,"  hi  which  I  re- 
lated the  legend  that  Prometheus,  in  order  to  make  man 
attend  to  his  present  world,  took  from  him  faith  in  a  future 
life,  and  left  him  only  the  hope.  But  evolution  has  over- 
ruled Prometheus.  The  majority  of  mankind  find  that  life 
is  hardly  worth  attending  to,  or  even  worth  living,  unless 
it  be  the  vestibule  to  a  world  in  which  their  ideals  are 
realized.  Human  evolution,  therefore,  has  turned  the  Pro- 
methean hope  into  a  faith,  and  this,  true  or  not,  will  con- 
tinue under  one  form  or  another  unless  a  new  human 
species  is  formed. 


CHAPTER  V 

Colonial  Chauvinism  —  King  George's  Sound  —  Weird  coast  names  —  Aus- 
tralian aborigines  —  An  uncivilizable  maiden  —  Dangers  of  federation  — 
Krakatoan  lava  —  Voltaire  and  Wesley  on  the  Lisbon  earthquake. 

THE  Australians  could  never  forgive  Anthony  Trollope 
for  calling  them  "  a  nation  of  blowers."  The  novelist 
said  a  hundred  good  things  of  them,  but  his  whole  pot  of 
ointment  was  ruined  by  that  fly.  No  doubt  it  was  a  hasty 
generalization  on  his  experience  of  some  gentleman  whose 
loyalty  to  his  colony  amounted  to  lunacy.  I  met  one  such 
on  my  travels.  He  had  travelled  around  the  world,  and 
found  nothing  of  any  kind  comparable  to  the  correspond- 
ing thing  in  Australia.  He  had  visited  every  theatre  in 
Europe,  and  never  seen  any  actor  who  would  be  more 
than  tolerated  on  the  Melbourne  stage.  He  would  not 
deny  that  England  contained  some  fine  people,  but  he 
had  not  seen  a  gentleman  in  America.  Nor  had  he  seen 
a  well-formed  sheep  or  cow  in  America.  And  so  on.  The 
Australians  who  heard  all  this  sat  on  the  enthusiasm  of 
their  countryman,  and  snubbed  him  fiercely ;  they  feared 
I  would  "  trollop  "  their  whole  country  on  his  account,  and 
explained  him  away  as  well  as  they  could.  But  I  reassured 
them,  by  rather  taking  the  side  of  the  fanatic,  and  cit- 
ing the  opinion  of  a  philosopher  that  no  great  enterprise 
is  ever  completely  carried  out  without  its  assuming  celes- 
tial proportions  in  some  minds.  It  requires  a  degree  of 
enthusiasm  amounting  to  semi-craziness  to  cause  a  man 
to  do  his  whole  part  in  the  development  of  a  colony.  An 
old  farmer,  who  had  toiled  sixty  years  near  little  Abbots- 


98  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

bury  in  England  without  leaving  it,  was  visited  when 
dying  by  the  clergyman,  who  spoke  to  him  of  the  joys  of 
heaven.  "  It  may  be  a  very  good  place,"  said  the  dying 
farmer,  "  but  for  a  constancy  give  me  Abbotsbury." 

Yet  oftener  was  I  reminded,  especially  in  the  way  so 
many  speak  of  England  as  "  home,"  that  with  all  their 
loyalty  to  Australia  a  majority  of  the  people  have  a  sub- 
conscious feeling  of  exile.  When  our  homeward-bound 
ship  was  about  leaving  Melbourne,  large  numbers  crowded 
to  the  deck  to  see  us  off.  There  were  partings,  and  I 
thought  I  observed  more  tears  shed  by  those  left  behind 
than  by  those  departing.  Somehow  the  multitude  sug- 
gested a  vision  of  shades  on  either  side  of  the  Styx,  some 
longing  for  Charon  to  ferry  them  over  to  Elysium,  the 
Elysians  longing  to  voyage  back  to  the  upper  earth. 

We  stopped  half  a  day  in  beautiful  Adelaide,  where  I 
was  able  to  pass  a  few  happy  hours  with  a  family  of  dear 
friends  I  had  known  in  London. 

Early  in  the  morning  we  approached  the  coast  of  West 
Australia,  and  a  forbidding  coast  it  is  —  low,  sandy,  tree- 
less land,  breaking  up  at  length  into  promontories  and 
islets  of  scarred  rock.  Who  could  have  been  the  bold 
man  who  first  fixed  his  abode  at  King  George's  Sound  ? 
It  was  amid  such  blanched  crags  that  Mephistopheles  ad- 
vised Faust  that  theologians  displayed  less  wisdom  than 
peasants  who  called  such  places  after  the  devil  —  Devil's 
bridge,  Devil's  punch-bowl,  and  the  like.  They  who 
named  these  sea  rocks  guarding  King  George's  Sound 
have  not  gone  the  length  of  the  Mephistophelian  theory, 
but  they  have  interpreted  the  stern  chaos  of  the  coast. 
The  first  island,  a  black  rock,  resembles  a  pallid  cof- 
fin in  the  distance,  and  is  named  "  Coffin  Island. "  Far- 
ther on  we  find  "  False  Island  "  and  "  Mistaken  Island." 


COAST  NAMES  99 

On  enquiring  of  some  one  familiar  with  the  coast  the 
origin  of  some  of  the  names,  he  did  not  know,  but  sug- 
gested explanations  of  a  depressing  character :  "  Eclipse 
Islands  "  were  probably  named  after  some  ship  wrecked 
on  them,  and  perhaps  "  Two  People's  Bay  "  marked  where 
two  people  perished.  Why  might  it  not  be  that  two  young 
people  —  like  the  eloped  and  forgiven  young  people  whose 
honeymoon  began  on  our  ship  —  there  found  their  para- 
dise ?  Up  Rhode  Island  harbour  the  early  mariners  sailed 
past  islands  named  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity,  landing  at 
Providence,  where  Roger  Williams  had  founded  the  first 
religiously  free  and  tolerant  state  ever  known  in  Christen- 
dom. But  no  Christian  colony  on  our  planet  is  now 
benign  enough  to  suggest  optimistic  names  for  its  hard 
features.  The  aborigines  of  Australia,  if  they  ever  believed 
in  any  beneficent  powers,  have  lost  them  tinder  British 
rule,  and  now  believe  only  in  the  evil  ones.  And  the  Eng- 
lish navigators  followed  them  in  their  instinctive  pessi- 
mism, as  we  follow  the  navigators.  None  of  us  looks  at  the 
hard,  unfriendly  coast  without  feeling  that  the  two  people 
never  went  to  Two  People's  Bay  willingly ;  they  were 
drowned,  or  perhap^s  gibbeted  there.  And  yet  there  were 
a  thousand  people  dwelling  at  Albany  willingly,  nestling 
between  the  sea  and  the  rock-hills. 

We  entered  Albany  Harbour  between  aa  ugly  Scylla 
and  a  dismal  Charybdis,  listening  to  an  account  of  how  the 
Clyde  was  wrecked  there.  Having  gone  ashore  on  a  launch, 
I  caught  sight  of  a  newspaper  sign  and  promptly  entered. 
The  editor  of  the  "  Albany  Mail "  was  cordial  and  in- 
telligent, and  his  four  weekly  pages  were  well  worth  the 
sixpence  they  cost.  The  paper,  started  that  year  (1883), 
had  collected  facts  about  the  settlement.  In  1826  a 
rumour  reached  Sydney  that  the  French  intended  to  occupy 


100  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

King  George's  Sound,  and  a  military  force  with  a  gang  of 
convicts  was  sent  to  take  possession.  The  panic  about 
the  French  proved  idle,  the  conversion  of  the  natives  was 
undertaken,  and  in  1834,  though  no  clergyman  could  be 
got  to  go,  the  pious  ladies  in  London  sent  out  the  evan- 
gelical clothing  by  which  the  poor  Australians  were 
rapidly  killed  off. 

Albany  was  delightfully  primitive.  The  walls  were 
placarded  with  notices  signed  by  its  two  justices  of  the 
peace,  giving  a  list  of  names  of  persons  (Europeans)  to 
whom  it  is  forbidden  to  sell  alcoholic  drinks.  A  law  for- 
bade selling  liquor  to  aborigines,  only  about  twenty  of 
whom  were  left  at  Albany.  It  was  said  that  eighty  miles 
away  there  were  five  hundred.  They  are  communists, 
those  who  earn  anything  from  the  whites  sharing  it  with 
the  rest. 

I  saw  a  lovely  half-caste  girl  of  about  ten  years  in  the 
village,  but  had  to  go  a  mile  out  to  find  other  aborigines. 
Five  or  six  of  us  went,  and  the  natives  were  evidently 
expecting  visitors  from  the  ship.  Twelve  —  all  pure 
blooded —  presented  themselves,  petitioning  for  "  bobs." 
They  have  that  word  for  shillings,  and  I  also  observed 
that  their  best  talker  in  English  dropped  and  inserted 
her  "h"  in  cockney  style.  They  were  all  related  to  each 
other,  and  were  in  trouble  because  one  of  their  number 
had  been  locked  up  for  fourteen  days.  The  prisoner's 
wife  walked  in  proud  distress,  a  conscious  object  of  com- 
passion. Finding  that  she  spoke  English  fairly  well,  I 
asked  her  what  had  been  her  husband's  offence.  "  De- 
serted his  master,"  she  answered.  "  It  is  wrong,  it  is 
wrong,"  said  the  oldest  of  the  men. 

The  language  in  which  those  people  conversed  with  each 
other  was  musical,  and  their  voices  in  pleasant  contrast 


ABORIGINAL  "KISSES"  101 

with  their  general  appearance.  They  were  darker  than  I 
expected,  though  the  men  and  two  of  the  women  had  made 
themselves  like  chromo-lithographs  with  ochre,  which 
they  called  "  wilgee."  The  women  used  it  only  on  their 
cheeks,  but  most  of  the  men  were  smeared  from  head  to 
foot.  Some  one  told  me  it  was  put  on  to  keep  away  ver- 
min, and  I  did  observe  that  the  peculiarly  pertinacious 
flies  of  Albany  did  not  alight  on  these  living  chromos  so 
much  as  on  the  rest  of  us.  But  the  more  probable  expla- 
nation is  the  fierce,  fiery  appearance  it  gave  them,  making 
them  terrible  and  demoniac  to  their  foes.  That  may  be 
the  reason  why  the  ochre  is  mostly  used  by  the  men. 

The  men  were  pleasant  to  their  women,  but  it  was  told 
me  in  the  village  that  when  a  man  was  leaving  home  for 
a  hunt  requiring  some  weeks'  absence  he  sometimes 
wounded  his  wife  with  a  spear  sufficiently  to  make  sure 
of  her  remaining  at  home  until  his  return.  On  the  back 
of  every  woman's  shoulder  a  regular  series  of  five  or  six 
scars,  each  about  two  inches  long,  excited  my  curiosity ; 
a  "  gin  "  woman  told  me  they  were  her  lover's  "  kisses." 
Such  lacerations  are  made  at  regular  intervals  by  the 
lover  up  to  the  time  of  marriage.  "  On  my  breast,  too," 
she  said,  but  that  was  carefully  concealed  by  a  kanga- 
roo skin.  She  then  pointed  to  a  jagged  four-inch  scar  on 
the  inside  of  her  forearm  and  said  proudly,  "  When  he 
make  that  I  am  married."  It  is  not  easy  to  astonish 
these  astonishing  people,  but  I  managed  to  do  it  by  ask- 
ing the  men  to  show  me  the  corresponding  caresses 
gashed  on  them.  No  such  scar  existed,  of  course,  but 
smiles  were  exchanged  by  the  women.  The  most  aged 
of  the  women  had  her  face  also  scarred,  which  looks  as  if 
the  earlier  treatment  of  her  sex  might  have  been  even 
more  severe. 


102  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

We  were  shown  their  exercises  with  spear,  waddj, 
and  boomerang.  The  performances  were  most  wonderful. 
With  their  ten-foot  finger-thick  switch  of  a  spear  they 
struck  a  shilling  on  a  stick  fifty  feet  away.  The  waddy,  a 
heavy  yard-long  inch-thick  stick,  was  also  thrown  with 
precision.  The  hurling  of  the  boomerang  was  as  beautiful 
as  amazing.  Thrown  at  a  point  near  the  ground  twenty 
yards  ahead,  it  gradually  rises  beyond,  and  curving  up- 
ward a  hundred  feet,  soars  back  and  alights  behind  the 
thrower  at  the  distance  he  desires.  The  boomerang  re- 
volves swiftly  on  its  passage  thrdugh  the  air  and  has  a 
beautiful  falcon-like  appearance.  I  was  never  weary  of 
watching  this  marvel  of  savage  skill  and  strength,  and 
they  were  delighted  with  my  admiration,  especially  so 
long  as  it  was  represented  in  shillings.  I  purchased  the 
best  boomerang,  though  the  owner  was  reluctant  to  sell  it. 
But  nobody  believes  in  the  boomerang  miracle  who  has 
not  seen  it. 

An  amateur  photographer  was  with  us,  and  the  natives 
were  all  glad  to  be  photographed,  their  chief  remarking, 
"  When  I  go  into  the  ground  I  will  still  live  in  that 
picture." 

They  all  wore  garments  of  kangaroo  skin,  those  of  the 
men  falling  behind  and  leaving  them  in  front  naked 
except  for  the  groin  cloth.  The  women  were  thickly 
wrapped  from  below  the  shoulder  to  the  knee.  Neither 
sex  had  stout  legs.  The  feet  of  the  women  were  delicate 
and  shapely.  The  group  presented  apathetic  appearance, 
and  it  was  painful  to  observe  the  repugnance  of  the 
Australian  whites  generally  regarding  them.  Were  it  not 
for  the  filthy  skins  and  blankets  on  which  the  British 
prudes  insist,  they  would  by  no  means  be  repulsive.  They 
possess  considerable  intelligence  and  humour.  One  need 


AN  UNCIVILIZABLE  MAIDEN  103 

only  read  Brough  Smith's  book  on  the  Australian  abori- 
gines to  recognize  the  remarkable  character  of  their 
legends  and  folk-lore.  We  paid  them  well  for  entertain- 
ment, but  for  which  our  half  day  in  Albany  would  have 
been  dull,  and  left  them  squatting  in  a  row,  backs  to 
fence,  each  with  his  and  her  clay  pipe. 

They  cast  no  envious  looks  towards  us,  these  survivors 
of  a  dying  race.  Repeatedly  has  the  experiment  of  sur- 
rounding them  with  "  civilization "  been  tried.  Mr. 
Knight,  the  commissioner  at  Albany,  and  Mrs.  Knight, 
took  into  their  home  an  exceptionally  bright  and  pretty 
native  girl,  christened  her  Mary  Cameron,  taught  her  to 
read,  write,  and  play  the  piano.  It  was  hoped  she  would 
do  something  for  the  aborigines,  and  a  schoolhouse,  I 
believe,  was  built  for  her  to  teach  in.  But  soon  Mary 
was  found  with  her  civilized  clothing  cast  off,  far  away 
in  a  cave  beside  a  stream,  enjoying  a  feast  of  raw  crabs 
and  lizards.  She  stoutly  refused  to  return  to  "  civilization," 
from  which  she  retained  only  one  thing,  a  passion  for 
reading  novels.  Her  discoverers  gave  her  some  blankets 
and  novels,  and  left  her  to  her  cave  and  freedom.  Per- 
haps there  was  too  much  catechism  and  too  much  brim- 
stone in  the  "  civilized  "  regime,  and  she  may  have  been 
saving  her  soul  from  a  false  God. 

What  a  distance  stretches  from  these  haggard  shreds 
of  a  wild  tribe  to  the  handsome  Anglo-Australians  before 
whom  they  melt  away!  But  how  will  the  descendants  of 
these  last  appear  to  the  traveller  of  the  far  future  ?  The 
evolutionary  forces  that  produced  the  aborigines  do  not 
altogether  cease  to  work. 

On  the  evening  when  our  ship  left  King  George's 
Sound,  while  we  sat  at  dinner,  an  English  journalist 
humorously  invited  me  aloud  to  drink  a  glass  of  cham- 


104  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

pagne  with  him  in  felicitation  on  our  leaving  Australia. 
The  jest  was  not  liked,  and  I  did  not  respond  even  merrily. 
The  Australians  could  not  quite  like  Darwin  because  he 
expressed  the  little  regret  he  felt  on  leaving  Australia 
nearly  fifty  years  before. 

The  journalist  had  probably  suffered  in  the  poor  hotels, 
the  dull  churches,  and  the  remorseless  Sabbaths.  I  had 
enjoyed  lavish  hospitalities,  charming  companies,  and  the 
society  of  some  of  the  most  intellectual  men  I  ever  met. 
But  I  left  Australia  with  a  feeling  that  I  had  seen  it  at 
its  best,  and  that  the  tendencies  were  in  a  direction  of  retro- 
gression. Many  of  the  best  people  were  already  looking 
forward  with  favour  to  that  federation  of  the  colonies 
which  has  since  been  achieved,  and  which  I  felt  would  be 
as  adverse  to  intellectual  and  moral  development  as  the 
union  of  Scottish  churches  had  been  to  the  liberalism  of 
such  men  as  Charles  Strong  and  Bishop  Moorhouse.1 
Where  either  individuals  or  states  are  fettered  together, 
their  movement  must  be  that  of  the  slowest ;  and  the  slow- 
est is  apt  to  be  the  colleague  that  refuses  to  move  at  all, 
unless  backward.  The  more  free  individuals,  whether  men 
or  communities,  the  more  chances  for  those  variations 
from  which  higher  forms  are  developed.  The  old  shout  of 

1  The  day  before  I  sailed  for  India  I  dined  at  the  house  of  Rev.  Charles 
Strong  with  our  friend  R.  J.  Jeffray.  Strong  had  resigned  his  pulpit  and 
looked  like  a  Daniel  rescued  from  the  lions'  den.  In  April,  1884,  when  he 
was  at  Balfurming,  Helensburg,  Scotland,  I  received  a  note  from  him  in 
which  he  said,  "  I  was  delivering  a  short  lecture  last  night  on  Australia. 
Strange  and  horrible  to  say,  a  young  lady  who  was  playing  the  harmonium 
on  the  occasion  took  fire,  her  dress  having  come  in  contact  with  one  of  the 
footlights.  What  a  scene !  Luckily  the  fire  was  got  out,  but  her  arms 
were  badly  burnt.  What  interpretation  might  not  the  Melbourne  Presby- 
tery place  upon  this !  " 

Mr.  Strong  returned  to  Melbourne,  where  an  independent  church  was 
erected  for  him. 


KRAKATOA  LAVA  105 

"Liberty  and  Union,  one  and  inseparable,"  has  a  fine 
sound,  but  so  has  the  prophecy  of  the  lion  and  the  lamb 
lying  down  together.  The  lamb  will  be  inside  the  lion,  and 
Liberty  be  devoured  by  over-centralization. 

On  our  voyage  towards  Ceylon  our  ship  sailed  a  whole 
day  through  thick  masses  of  floating  lava,  which  rattled 
perpetually  against  the  hull.  Now. and  then  we  passed 
floating  palm-trees  which  had  been  hurled  and  then  per- 
haps drifted  until  they  were  a  vast  distance  from  Kra- 
katoa,  where  they  were  uprooted.  Their  leaves  were  still 
green,  and  on  them  perched  many  different  birds.  We 
passed  within  a  few  yards  of  one  of  those  palms.  Its 
trunk  was  completely  covered  by  sea-birds  of  all  sizes  and 
varieties.  Side  by  side  they  stood  in  a  row,  motionless, 
silent,  peaceful,  but  all  looked  disconsolate.  They  were 
not  disturbed  by  our  ship  or  our  shouts. 

Enough  of  the  lava  was  drawn  up  from  the  sea  in 
buckets  for  all  of  us  to  carry  away  souvenirs  of  that 
Batavian  event  which,  had  Krakatoa  been  under  control 
of  any  purposing  Power,  should  have  renewed  in  every 
heart  the  defiance  of  Prometheus.  How  many  of  us  might 
have  found  in  our  handful  of  lava  a  symbol  of  the  frag- 
ments of  volcanic  theology  hidden  in  the  brain  of  the 
most  rationalistic  ? 

In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  two  men  divided 
the  religious  attention  of  Europe  —  Voltaire  and  John 
Wesley.  Voltaire  was  a  lion  in  London  among  the  aris- 
tocrats at  the  very  time  Wesley  was  ordained  a  deacon ; 
and  thirty  years  later  the  two  men  respectively  repre- 
sented to  "  Salvationists "  of  the  time  Christ  and  Anti- 
Christ.  While  these  two  men  were  promoting  each  a 
revival  of  his  own  kind  in  Europe,  the  great  Lisbon  earth- 
quake occurred,  when  men,  women,  and  children  were 


106  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

destroyed  like  flies.  Both  issued  pamphlets  upon  it.  Vol- 
taire invited  the  theologians  to  stand  with  him  beside 
that  vast  grave  in  which  innocent  people  were  buried 
alive,  and  say  whether  it  were  the  work  of  a  providence 
whom  men  ought  to  worship.  Wesley  summoned  the 
world  to  witness  the  judgment  of  Jehovah  upon  a  region 
where  the  Inquisition  had  flourished,  and  added  an  account 
of  a  landslide  at  Whiston  Cliffs,  which,  though  it  hurt 
nobody,  was  meant  as  a  sign  of  what  God  could  do  if  he 
wished. 

In  New  England  Thoreau  thought  that  Atheism  must 
be  comparatively  popular  with  God  himself.  No  doubt 
any  respectable  deity  would  rather  have  on  his  side  one 
Voltaire  than  millions  of  "  larrikin  "  devotees.  But  never- 
theless, so  long  as  the  Collectivist  deity  has  to  bear  the 
burden  of  the  volcano  and  the  agonies  of  the  world,  and 
suffer  the  patronage  of  brainless  masses,  the  orthodox 
have  a  good  chance  of  making  the  world  as  depraved  and 
miserable  as  their  creeds  declare  it.  The  gospel  of  lava  — 
of  fire  and  brimstone  especially  for  the  Voltaireans  —  is 
vomited  still  from  thousands  of  pulpits,  and  we  rational- 
ists are  somewhat  like  the  disconsolate  birds  on  their 
floating  palm-tree. 

But  what  about  even  our  palm  ?  It  looks  green  enough 
while  we  are  sitting  on  it,  but  after  all  it  is  uprooted,  and 
we  must  seek  some  other  ark.  Voltaire,  though  his  faith 
in  providence  perished  in  the  Lisbon  earthquake,  held  on 
apparently  to  some  ghost  of  deity ;  but  a  deity  practically 
useful  only  so  far  as  churches  make  him  so  has  disap- 
peared from  unbiassed  philosophy. 

As  I  write  out  these  notes  (May,  1902)  in  New  York,  a 
volcano  is  devastating  Martinique.  By  some  unexplained 
coincidence  that  volcano  bears  the  name  of  the  terrible 


CONFESSED  DELUSIONS  107 

Hawaiian  goddess,  "  La  Pelee."  It  is,  however,  notable 
that  no  voice  important  enough  to  be  heard  is  proclaiming 
with  John  Wesley  that  these  disasters  are  the  judgment 
of  Jehovah.  Nay,  the  destruction  occurs  simultaneously 
with  the  beginning  of  a  retreat  by  the  General  Assembly 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  America  from  dogmas  that 
grew  out  of  just  such  destructive  courses  of  nature.  It 
was  the  destructive  forces  of  nature  that  proclaimed  a  god 
of  wrath,  and  the  indiscriminateness  of  such  destruction 
—  not  even  babes  and  helpless  animals  being  spared  — 
which  proclaimed  a  curse  on  the  earth  and  on  mankind. 
The  old  Westminster  Creed  is  now  turned  into  a  literal 
"  confession."  It  is  confessed  that  for  many  generations 
a  great  church  has  been  imposing  on  mankind  as  divine 
truth  a  grievous  error.  The  physical  sufferings  of  the 
two  finest  scholars  in  Geneva  slain  by  Calvin,  of  the 
Catholic  victims  sacrificed  in  Ireland  by  Cromwell,  and 
the  victims  of  Puritanism  in  America  are  slight  com- 
pared with  the  inward  tortures  of  human  hearts,  the 
parents  weeping  for  the  possible  damnation  of  their  babes, 
the  ruin  of  happiness  for  many  millions  terrorized  for 
centuries  by  dogmas  now  confessed  to  be  delusions. 


CHAPTER  VI 

Ceylon  —  Plain  living  and  high  thinking  —  Talks  with  the  Buddhist  Perera 

—  Origin  of  Whittington's  cat  —  "  Rodyas  "  — A  Sinhalese  law  court  — 
Judge  Arunachalam  and  his  wife  at  Kattnra  —  A  ramble  with  Sinhalese 
gentlemen  —  My  Buddhist  plea  for  a  suffering  snake  —  Hindu  shrines 
in  Buddhist  temples  —  The  learned  priest  Subhfiti  —  Sinhalese  homes  — 
A  Moslem  on  Heber's  verse  about  Ceylon  —  Temple  at  Khandy  —  A 
Moslem  sermon  —  Kellania  —  Buddhist  folk-tales  —  "  Merits  "  —  Nir- 
vana —  My  Christmas  lecture  at  Colombo  —  High  priest  of  Adam's  Peak 

—  Conferences  with  Buddhists  in  their  college  —  An  unpublished  Pituka 

—  "  Covetousness  "  —  Of  actions  at  once  right  and  sinful  —  The  extinct 
order  of  female  priests  —  English  masqueraders  —  Bishop  Mcllvaine  and 
Bishop  Temple. 

ON  a  warm  summer  day,  in  the  middle  of  December, 
voyaging  on  a  sea  of  glass,  I  beheld  a  seeming  long 
white  cloud  low  on  the  horizon.  It  was  Ceylon,  —  the 
land  of  my  dreams.  Poor  Columbus !  You  who  saw  a 
cloud  that  turned  into  America,  and  were  welcomed  by 
gentle  natives,  —  unarmed  Buddhists  in  their  peacef  ulness, 
—  how  pitiable  you  appear !  "  They  knew  not  the  use  of 
weapons,  and  cut  their  hands  in  handling  our  swords ;  they 
know  no  evil ;  what  a  pity  they  must  be  damned  because 
they  know  not  Jesus !  "  So  wrote  the  discoverer  who,  dis- 
appointed in  not  finding  the  land  of  gold,  bethought  him 
of  transforming  the  gentle  natives  into  gold  and  into 
Christians.  Four  centuries  have  passed  and  Christendom 
is  singing  of  the  vileness  of  the  Sinhalese,  the  most  inno- 
cent people  on  the  face  of  the  earth ! 

It  was  a  new  world  I  was  entering.  I  had  studied  the 
Sinhalese  Buddha  and  Buddhists,  and  knew  I  was  leaving 
behind  Anglo-Saxonism,  —  cruel,  ambitious,  canting,  ag- 


UNWORLDLINESS  OF  BUDDHISTS       109 

gressive,  —  to  mingle  with  people  who  knew  "  the  blessed- 
ness of  being  little."  Here  at  last  was  a  country  without 
any  revolutionary  party.  They  were  free  to  think  and 
feel  and  dream,  to  find  happiness  in  making  their  wives 
and  children  happy,  and  in  sharing  the  thoughts  of  the 
world's  teachers. 

But  I  was  too  sophisticated  to  adapt  my  mind  at  once 
to  the  extreme  unworldliness  of  the  Buddhists.  To  find 
philosophers  living  in  thatched  cottages  with  earthen  floors 
was  an  astonishment.  Sitting  with  one  such  man,  talking 
of  Emerson  and  Carlyle  and  Max  Miiller,  —  he  knew  their 
works  by  heart,  —  I  could  not  forbear  contrasting  the 
abode  of  even  well-to-do  Buddhists  with  the  villas  of  their 
English  and  Hindu  neighbours.  We  were  not  far  from 
the  governor's  palaces,  and  he  pointed  to  a  mounted  escort 
entering  the  palace  court  on  prancing  steeds.  He  said, 
**  Would  you  like  to  be  in  the  place  of  that  captain  with 
his  red  coat,  high  cap,  and  steed?"  "No,"  I  answered. 
"  Well,  that  is  the  way  we  look  upon  these  planters  and 
officials  and  their  fine  houses.  They  do  not  appeal  to  us 
in  the  least.  We  are  glad  to  be  quite  out  of  their  sphere. 
We  have  good  food,  good  wives ;  we  love  to  see  our  chil- 
dren, as  you  see,  nearly  naked,  playing  on  the  grass ;  and 
to  read,  think,  converse  on  great  subjects,  and  are  content 
to  let  the  world  go  prancing  on  its  way  while  we  go  on 
ours." 

Mr.  Perera,  a  highly  educated  Buddhist,  told  me  that 
the  story  of  some  English  authorities  of  Buddha's  birth 
from  a  virgin  is  unknown  in  Ceylon.  Buddha's  mother, 
Maia,  died  some  days  after  Buddha's  death,  and  in  popu- 
lar belief  she  was  born  a  male  god.  My  expressed  hope 
that  Buddha's  father  had  become  a  goddess  amused  him. 
The  great  Buddha  tree  at  Kellania,  believed  to  have  been 


110  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

part  of  the  original  Bo-tree  in  India,  is  said  to  have  been 
brought  thence  by  a  queenly  priestess. 

Mr.  Perera  also  gave  me  some  specimens  of  the  domes- 
tic form  taken  by  the  Buddhagosha  parables.  In  illustra- 
tion of  the  effects  of  bad  company  Buddha  once  related 
that  a  certain  king  had  everything  perfect  around  him,  — 
his  wife  was  the  best,  his  horse  the  best,  and  he  especially 
prided  himself  on  having  the  finest  elephant  in  the  world. 
But  this  elephant  went  mad.  Great  doctors  were  sum- 
moned, but  none  could  cure  him.  The  elephant-keeper, 
questioned  sharply,  said :  "  One  night  wild  animals  in 
the  jungle  near  by  talking  together  said,  '  This  would  have 
been  the  king  of  elephants ;  here  he  is  a  prisoner  chained 
up;  we  who  live  in  freedom  in  the  jungle  are  far  hap- 
pier.' The  elephant  heard  this  and  it  made  him  wild  and 
mad.  But  the  priests  came  and  preached  to  the  elephant 
high  morality,  how  to  do  good,  and  the  dangers  of  hell. 
So  the  elephant  was  cured  and  the  Buddhist  proverb 
arose,  '  Even  the  wild  beasts  may  be  converted  by  good 
company.' " 

My  friend  was  a  loving  reader  of  Emerson,  but  could  not 
at  all  feel  the  interest  of  our  philosopher  in  immortality. 
Indeed  he  said  that  he  thought  a  belief  that  death  was 
entire  extinction  would  be  to  the  vast  majority  of  the 
human  race  glad  tidings.  What  he  said  on  this  matter 
reminded  me  of  Shakespeare's  thoughts  as  expressed  by 
Hamlet  and  also  by  the  condemned  youth  in  "  Measure 
for  Measure."  The  humble  millions  of  the  world  fear 
death  largely  because  they  have  been  terrified  by  notions 
of  torment  after  death,  or  of  interminable  journeyings 
through  vile  forms. 

It  seems  that  there  is  a  sort  of  popular  belief  that 
the  lower  animals  are  immortal.  The  sufferings  of  animals 


THE  RODYAS  111 

which  so  troubled  the  faith  of  Sarah  Flower  Adams,  the 
writer  of  "  Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee,"  and  of  Sir  Henry 
Taylor,  and  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  who  could  conceive 
of  no  future  redress  or  moral  benefit  for  animals,  is 
escaped  by  the  Buddhists,  who  look  upon  these  inferior 
forms  as  their  humble  spiritual  ancestors  and  poor 
relations.  The  familiar  London  folk-tale  of  Whittington 
and  his  Cat,  which  I  once  traced  through  many  parts  of 
the  world,  originated  in  a  Buddhist  parable  whose  moral 
was  the  base  ingratitude  of  man  to  the  animals  that 
befriended  him.  The  cat,  having  ingeniously  made  the 
fortune  of  a  poor  peasant,  is  cast  aside  to  perish  in 
wretchedness.  This  lesson  against  ingratitude  faintly 
reappears  in  the  early  versions  of  "  Puss  in  Boots,"  but 
has  entirely  disappeared  in  the  story  of  Whittington,  in 
which  the  cat  is  supplanted  by  the  Providence  which 
watches  over  the  speculations  of  the  pious  and  loyal 
British  merchant. 

Some  relics  of  tribes  are  found  in  India  whose  passive 
and  unprogressive  character  was  probably  derived  from 
ages  of  subjugation.  The  raid  of  John  Brown  in  Virginia 
was  enough  to  prove  that  in  the  evolution  of  a  docile 
slave  the  old  insurrectionary  elements  that  had  produced 
such  leaders  as  Toussaint  1'Ouverture  and  Nat  Turner 
had  long  been  trampled  out  of  the  negro  race  in  America. 
It  was  no  doubt  so  with  the  taciturn  Tamils  in  Ceylon, 
and  traceably  so  in  the  "  Rodyas,"  who  have  their  legend, 
according  to  which  an  offence  against  some  half-mythical 
monarch  by  his  "  nobles  "  led  to  a  decree  isolating  them, 
and  their  descendants  had  become  a  separate  tribe.  Their 
women  were  forbidden  to  wear  clothing  above  the  waist, 
and  the  men  had  some  similar  disqualification  which 
kept  them  from  mingling  with  people  in  cities.  Two 


112  t        MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Americans  accompanied  me  to  the  forest  of  the  Rodyas, 
and  when  we  saw  the  men  with  long  knives  sheathed  in 
their  loin  cloth  we  felt  as  if  we  had  strayed  beyond  the 
line  of  safety.  But  the  knives  were  relics  falling  to  a 
harmless  generation.  The  women  had  cultivated  long  hair, 
and  when  we  passed  covered  their  breasts  with  it,  Godiva- 
like.  One  of  these  held  in  her  arms  a  very  beautiful  baby, 
into  whose  hand  I  put  a  coin.  The  mother  smiled,  and 
said  something  to  her  husband.  He  advanced  and  walked 
with  us  to  a  house  where  there  was  a  person  who  con- 
versed with  us  pleasantly  in  English. 

I  made  an  excursion  to  Kattura.  A  law  court  was  in 
session  there,  and  the  proceedings  were  mostly  in  English, 
the  case  being  between  a  native  and  an  Englishman.  The 
chief  lawyer  was  a  fine-looking  Sinhalese  gentleman, 
whose  golden  tint  was  occasionally  revealed  by  a  gesture. 
The  young  judge  had  an  attractive  face  which  I  had 
somewhere  seen  before,  and  he  sent  down  a  note  from  the 
bench  requesting  me  to  remain  near  by,  as  he  had  known 
me  at  Cambridge,  England.  Judge  Arunachalam  was  an 
unctergraduate  at  Cambridge  at  the  time  of  my  Sunday 
evening  lectures  there,  which  he  had  heard.  He  also  pos- 
sessed several  of  my  books  and  sympathized  with  my 
religious  views.  He  insisted  on  my  visiting  him  in  his 
house,  and  as  the  court  was  not  to  be  resumed  for  three  or 
four  days,  said  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  him  to  go  with 
me  through  the  neighbourhood.  The  opportunity  was 
welcomed.  The  judge  (Hindu)  had  recently  married  a 
Sinhalese  lady,  and  they  resided  in  a  beautiful  villa.  His 
young  wife  had  an  English  governess,  and  was  assiduous 
in  her  studies.  One  of  her  favourite  books  was  my  "  Sacred 
Anthology,"  and  when  her  husband  took  me  to  his  house 
and  went  off  to  inform  her  that  he  had  brought  a  guest, 


A  SINHALESE  LADY  113 

he  presently  returned  with  the  pleasing  information  that 
his  wife  would  be  present  to  receive  me  at  dinner.  He 
told  me  that  she  had  never  in  her  life  met  any  gentleman 
of  the  English  race,  and  felt  a  little  nervous  at  the 
venture ;  she  could  not  depart  from  usage  so  far  as  to  eat 
at  the  table  with  us,  but  was  anxious  to  meet  me  and  for 
the  first  time  to  try  her  English  with  one  from  abroad. 

The  house  and  garden  filled  up  all  my  old  visions  of 
Saadi's  "  Gulistan"  or  Rose  Garden.  The  villa,  embowered 
by  palms,  twined  about  with  blossoming  vines,  the  open 
sides  of  the  drawing-room  tapestried  with  flowers,  the  air 
perfumed  by  the  breath  of  roses,  made  a  station  in  my 
"  Earthward  Pilgrimage."  But  when  the  Sinhalese  lady 
appeared  all  of  these  flowers  and  decorations  wove  them- 
selves into  a  sympathetic  frame  around  her. 

The  English  governess  was  handsome,  but  no  type  of 
beauty  previously  seen  had  prepared  me  for  that  of  Lady 
Arunachalam.  Her  complexion  was  of  lightest  gold- 
tint,  a  slight  rose-mist  appearing  and  vanishing  on  her 
cheek ;  her  features  small  and  fine,  her  ample  black  tresses 
fell  around  her  oval  face.  The  timidity  in  her  large  eyes 
was  scarcely  veiled  by  the  long  lashes,  but  there  was  also 
an  expression  of  infantine  curiosity.  She  was  hardly 
seventeen,  I  suppose.  It  was  in  December,  the  tropical 
summer,  and  the  lady  was  not  burdened  with  garments ; 
her  simple  white  but  toned  drapery  folded  softly  around 
her  with  two  or  three  coils,  and  she  wore  jewelled  armlets. 

She  said  something  in  Sinhalese,  which  the  judge 
interpreted :  "  She  welcomes  you  and  begs  that  you  will 
be  seated."  She  herself  took  a  seat  on  a  divan  and  said 
presently  with  an  accent  I  might  have  thought  comical  in 
another,  but  now  found  charming,  that  she  loved  to  study 
English.  With  some  aid  from  her  governess  she  told  me 


114  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

that  she  had  heard  that  in  England  women  were  free, 
that  they  were  able  to  enter  into  the  employments  of  life ; 
in  India  and  even  Ceylon  women  had  few  advantages. 
I  gave  her  an  account  of  the  progress  in  that  direction  in 
England  and  America,  telling  her  particularly  about  the 
female  physicians  and  artists.  Her  colour  went  and  came 
as  she  listened  and  answered,  "  I  am  very  glad."  She  had 
heard  that  when  the  Prince  of  Wales  (Edward  VII)  was 
in  India,  and  made  grand  parade  in  the  cities  attended 
by  all  the  Hindu  princes  in  their  richest  costumes,  he  had 
requested  that  on  each  such  occasion  the  ladies  should  be 
allowed  to  witness  the  scene.  The  Prince  had  acted  the 
part  of  many  a  fairy  prince  in  oriental  folk-lore,  and  in 
the  impression  made  on  Lady  Arunachalam,  the  only  lady 
of  high  caste  with  whom  I  was  able  to  converse  in  that 
region,  I  could  perceive  that  he  had  not  only  left  his  image 
in  the  zenana  along  with  the  canonized  heroes,  but  had 
been  the  means  of  placing  slightly  ajar  those  close-barred 
doors  which  ultimately  perhaps  may  be  thrown  open. 

The  judge  was  delighted  with  the  freedom  of  his  wife 
in  conversation  with  a  stranger,  and  now  and  then  put  in 
an  encouraging  word  or  two,  but  she  was  left  to  follow 
her  own  will.  She  requested  some  suggestion  of  interest- 
ing books  in  English,  and  before  leaving  I  made  out  a  list. 

Judge  Arunachalam  had  arranged  that  on  the  next 
day,  Sunday,  the  most  intelligent  Buddhists  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood should  meet  me  at  the  train  and  bring  me  by  an 
interesting  road  to  his  house ;  by  breakfast  time  his  pre- 
parations for  Monday's  court  would  be  finished,  and  we 
could  together  visit  villages  and  temples.  About  twenty 
met  me,  headed  by  the  English-speaking  lawyer. 

On  our  way  we  came  upon  a  snake  reduced  to  helpless- 
ness by  red  ants.  It  was  a  harmless  "  rat-snake,"  valued 


A  PLEA  FOR  A  SNAKE  115 

as  the  chief  exterminator  of  rats.  It  had  received  no 
wound,  but  these  red  ants  have  power  to  paralyze  and 
bind  a  creature  five  feet  long.  The  snake  was  coloured 
red  by  the  Lilliputian  swarm,  and  I  proposed  that  it 
should  be  delivered  by  death  from  its  motionless  misery. 
But  there  were  murmurs  against  this.  I  was  given  to 
understand  that  it  was  contrary  to  their  religion  to  take 
life,  even  that  of  the  ants.  We  went  on  some  sixty  yards 
in  silence,  when  I  turned  and  requested  that  the  snake 
might  be  brought.  It  was  brought  on  a  pole,  then  at  my 
request  was  dipped  in  a  pool  and  cleared  of  ants,  and 
finally  laid  across  the  road.  It  was  evidently  half  dead, 
but  if  left  might  linger  in  agony  some  days.  It  was  on 
the  first  Sunday  of  1884  that  I  thus  found  myself  in  a 
forest  of  Ceylon  preaching  to  Buddhists  in  behalf  of  a 
snake,  bringing  back  to  them  from  the  West  a  more 
humane  interpretation  of  their  own  doctrine.  I  told  them 
how  painfully  it  impressed  me  that  the  mercifulness  of 
Buddha  should  result  in  the  torture  of  any  creatures. 
The  compassionate  heart  of  that  great  teacher,  recoiling 
from  the  cruel  sacrifices  of  altars,  from  the  agonies 
inflicted  by  man  on  man,  and  the  disregard  of  animal 
sufferings,  had  testified  against  such  cruelties ;  but  what 
would  he  say  could  he  now  see  that  his  tenderness  had 
ended  in  leaving  a  harmless  animal  to  be  slowly  devoured 
alive  during  several  days?  What  would  the  compas- 
sionate Buddha,  for  whom  a  serpent  is  said  to  have  made 
a  throne  with  his  coils  —  what  would  he  do  if  he  were 
in  the  presence  of  this  misery  which  we  cannot  relieve 
but  can  end  ?  As  I  said  this,  each  word  being  translated 
to  them  as  uttered,  a  youth  stepped  forth  and  with 
one  vigorous  blow  of  a  stick  ended  the  snake's  life. 

The  company  then  began  to  talk  among  themselves, 


116  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

and  presently  the  lawyer  communicated  to  me  their  point 
of  view.  The  snake's  situation  was  the  result  of  its  pre- 
vious history  in  other  forms,  and  its  death  by  ants  might 
be  a  necessary  condition  of  reaching  a  higher  future, 
such  death  being  its  self-determined  path.  To  this  I  an- 
swered that  our  passing  by  was  as  much  its  destiny  as 
the  attack  of  ants.  The  merciful  hand  that  struck  the 
blow  of  deliverance  was  the  poor  reptile's  destiny.  And 
why,  I  urged,  should  we  not  at  all  times  and  to  all  crea- 
tures be  a  good  destiny,  counteracting  the  cruelties  of 
nature  ?  This  won  some  favour. 

After  a  luxurious  breakfast  with  Judge  Arunachalam, 
we  began  our  ramble  by  visiting  a  temple  in  which  by 
the  side  of  Buddha  stands  a  small  shrine  of  Vishnu,  to 
whom  offerings  of  flowers  are  subordinately  made.  We 
found  hanging  from  the  hand  of  Vishnu  a  Buddhist's 
written  vow  of  a  certain  number  of  baskets  of  flowers  and 
one  hundred  lamps  in  case  of  the  offerer's  success  in  de- 
fending himself  on  a  trial  for  theft.  Judge  Arunachalam, 
before  whom  the  man  had  been  acquitted,  was  amused 
by  observing  these  duly  paid  debts  to  Vishnu.  Among 
these  gods  transformed  to  guardian  genii  is  now  Maia, 
the  mother  of  Buddha.  She  introduced  Buddha  among 
the  gods  to  humanize  them.  I  was  scandalized  that  her 
sex  should  be  changed  ;  but  a  priest  explained  to  me  that 
by  continued  merits  a  woman  might  be  promoted  to  be  a 
ma.n  in  the  next  world.  I  could  not  forbear  saying  that 
I  hoped  the  time  might  come  when  it  would  be  believed 
that  a  man,  by  extraordinary  virtues,  might  be  rewarded 
by  becoming  a  woman. 

At  one  temple  we  met  the  priest  "Waskaduwe  Subhuti,  to 
whom  the  judge  paid  marked  honour.  He  was  known  to 
European  scholars  by  his  Pali  Grammar  (1876),  and  I 


THE  PRIEST'S  SUBSTITUTE  117 

had  in  my  pocket  a  letter  to  him  from  Max  Miiller.  He 
spoke  excellent  English,  and  was  a  gracious  old  gentle- 
man. His  residence  was  some  distance,  and  he  was  brought 
in  a  sedan  carried  by  four  men.  I  ventured  to  allude  to 
this  devotion  on  the  part  of  his  people.  *'  It  is,"  he  said, 
"  because  I  have  been  with  them  very  long  and  am  now 
too  feeble  to  walk  the  distance  from  my  house."  But  I 
was  desirous  of  knowing  why  he  did  not  come  in  a  car- 
riage drawn  by  horses.  He  said  that  life  was  so  sacred 
that  he  was  afraid  a  horse  might  be  vitally  injured  by 
carrying  him.  "  But,"  I  said,  "  might  it  not  be  the  same 
with  one  of  those  men  while  he  is  carrying  you  ?  "  After 
a  moment's  silence  he  said  very  sweetly,  "But  a  man 
can  tell  me  if  he  is  suffering." 

Subhuti  was  an  exact  thinker,  and  the  elevation  and 
sweetness  of  his  spirit  excited  my  veneration.  He  was  the 
Buddhist  I  had  dreamed  of.  The  affection  of  his  people 
for  him  was  touching.  He  had  some  pleasant  word  to  say 
to  each  of  them.  The  mothers  brought  their  children  to 
him  that  he  might  smile  on  them,  and  some  of  them 
brought  him  white  lotos  flowers. 

I  got  information  from  Subhuti  on  the  popular  Bud- 
dhist folk-lore  and  ideas  of  future  existence,  for  I  knew 
that  the  "  will  to  live  "  had  long  pressed  Nirvana  (annihi- 
lation) to  a  remote  place.  Siva  has  transferred  his  puni- 
tive power  to  Yama,  whose  throne  is  on  a  sword's  edge, 
and  over  him  a  mountain :  should  he  show  the  very  least 
partiality  in  any  judgment  the  mountain  will  fall  on  him 
and  the  sword  cleave  him.  One's  evil  deeds  turn  to  his 
devil.  Killing  animals  is  the  sin  most  severely  punished, 
but  a  Buddhist  may  eat  meat  of  an  animal  slain  by  an- 
other. A  man  killed  a  goat  to  give  food  to  a  noble  who 
visited  him ;  the  slayer  had  to  suffer  as  many  years  as 


118  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

the  goat  had  hairs !  In  heaven  all  of  inferior  merits  wait 
on  those  of  superior  merits.  The  next  Buddha  will  not  be 
found  under  the  Bo-tree  but  under  the  Iron-wood-tree,  — 
a  tribute  to  beauty,  as  this  tree  has  rosy  leaves.  There  is 
no  marriage  in  heaven,  but  the  sexes  remain.  (In  a  fresco 
I  remarked  only  one  she-demon  among  many  male  ones.) 

As  we  were  walking  through  one  of  the  villages  a 
woman  ran  out  from  her  house  and  threw  herself  on  her 
knees  before  the  judge,  the  tears  flowing  down  her  cheeks. 
She  touched  her  forehead  on  bis  feet,  then  laid  aside  her 
cape,  and  thus  naked  to  the  waist  (symbol  of  utter  abase- 
ment) clasped  her  hands.  While  she  was  pouring  forth 
her  heart-broken  prayer,  the  judge  whispered  to  me,  "  Her 
son  has  just  been  arrested."  After  listening  to  her  story  — 
her  son,  her  only  support,  excited  by  tree-toddy,  had 
struck  somebody  —  the  judge  placed  her  garment  on  her 
shoulders,  and  lifted  her  gently.  He  then  went  to  the 
doors  of  several  neighbours  and  enquired  about  the  case. 
The  reports  were  all  favourable  to  the  character  of  the 
youth,  the  blow  was  not  serious,  and  he  spoke  words  that 
brought  hope  into  the  widow's  face. 

The  judge  told  the  group  who  had  collected  (so  he  in- 
formed me)  that  I  honoured  Buddha  and  read  his  teach- 
ings to  assemblies  in  England ;  and  he  desired  me  to  be 
shown  their  household  arrangements.  I  was  shown  through 
several  houses,  and  women  brought  out  their  utensils  and 
implements.  One  young  woman  brought  a  stone  mortar 
and  pestle  and  beat  corn  into  "haddy  "  (meal).  Another 
exhibited  the  stone  oil-press.  All  such  things  were  done 
by  women.  Their  flesh  was  like  the  lightest  bronze  ;  their 
forms  and  movements  graceful,  and  in  their  faces  was 
the  happiness  and  innocence  of  children.  The  only  tears 
I  saw  in  Ceylon  were  those  of  the  widow  about  her  son. 


SUBHUTI,   A  LEARNED   BUDDHIST   AUTHOR 


BISHOP  HEBER'S  HYMN  119 

The  judge  (not  a  Buddhist)  said  that  crime  in  Ceylon 
was  very  rare  so  far  as  Buddhists  were  concerned.  They 
had  few  and  simple  wants  and  no  hunger  for  riches  or 
splendour.  I  received  an  account  of  a  curious  case  of 
theft  which  had  occurred  in  the  cold  months.  A  Buddhist 
had  stolen  a  ring  from  an  English  lady,  confessed  the 
theft,  and  been  imprisoned.  He  then  sent  word  to  the 
English  lady  where  she  would  find  her  ring.  She  found 
it,  and  was  curious  about  the  proceeding.  It  was  dis- 
covered that  the  man's  hut  was  so  out  of  repair  and  wet 
that  he  could  not  live  in  it  during  the  cold  season,  and 
had  determined  by  this  theft  to  obtain  for  a  time  comfort- 
able support  in  her  Majesty's  agreeable  prison. 

Among  European  men  of  the  world  acquainted  with 
Ceylon,  the  lines  about  that  island  in  the  Missionary 

Hymn  — 

Though  every  prospect  pleases, 
And  only  man  is  vile  — 

are  regarded  as  a  huge  joke.  A  Moslem  jeweller,  of 
whom  I  was  making  some  purchases  and  who  was  fluent 
in  English,  told  me  that  it  was  perfectly  well  known 
there  how  Bishop  Heber  came  to  write  those  lines :  a 
Eurasian  Christian  jeweller  in  Colombo  sold  Heber  a 
big  emerald  that  when  he  got  home  turned  out  to  be 
glass,  so  he  sat  down  and  wrote  that  man  in  Ceylon  is 
vile!  It  is  certain  that  in  any  great  city  of  Christendom 
there  is  more  crime  in  one  day  than  Ceylon  knows  in  a 
year. 

There  are  in  Colombo  several  "  vile  "  houses  depend- 
ing for  patronage  on  travellers.  When  our  ship  arrived, 
agents  came  out  on  the  tender  and  went  about  recom- 
mending those  houses,  declaring  that  the  inmates  were  all 
Christians. 


120  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

When  I  arrived  in  Ceylon  there  was  much  excitement 
about  an  attack  that  had  just  been  made  by  the  Catholics 
upon  a  Buddhist  procession.  A  bit  of  what  was  believed 
to  be  the  alms-bowl  of  Buddha,  found  at  Sopara  near 
Bombay,  having  been  presented  to  the  Buddhists  of 
Ceylon,  they  were  bearing  it  to  a  shrine  when  they  were 
attacked.  The  Catholics  thought  they  were  mimicking 
their  own  processions  and  carrying  aloft  a  crucified  ape. 
The  Buddhists  were  following  usages  older  than  the 
Christian  era. 

In  Canterbury,  England,  there  is  an  English  Church 
training-school  for  missionaries,  in  which  I  onee  saw 
youths  fresh  from  universities  learning  carpentering  and 
other  mechanic  work  that  might  be  helpful  to  primitive 
tribes,  but  the  one  art  needful  they  were  not  learning  — 
that  their  first  duty  was  to  comprehend  a  religion  before 
trying  to  destroy  it.  That  ancient  seaport  town,  Sopara, 
which  one  tradition  pronounces  Buddha's  birthplace,  and 
where  the  relic  sent  to  Ceylon  was  found,  has  been 
identified  by  Benfey  as  the  Ophir  of  Solomon ;  the  Por- 
tuguese made  converts  there  over  seven  centuries  ago, 
and  the  Christians  continue  as  a  caste,  though  in  rites  and 
dress  and  beliefs  hardly  distinguishable  from  the  Brah- 
mans.  The  Portuguese  are  usually  the  most  friendly 
missionaries,  and  their  only  outbreak,  that  of  1883, 
though  nobody  was  harmed,  was  unfortunate.  .  It  gave 
the  American  theosophist,  Colonel  Olcott,  an  opportunity 
to  pose  as  the  patron  and  advocate  of  the  Buddhists,  —  an 
opportunity  he  made  the  most  of,  —  and  to  ally  Blavat- 
skyism  with  Buddha,  lowering  the  latter  in  the  unlearned 
mind.  On  the  other  hand,  the  disgrace  of  the  Portuguese 
missionaries  in  Colombo  was  the  means  of  admonishing 
all  missionaries  that  the  Empress  of  India  was  the  bead 


THE  EVILS  OF  NATURE  121 

of  the  Buddhist  Church  in  Ceylon,  and  that  no  disrespect 
to  it  would  be  tolerated. 

In  the  ancient  temple  at  Khandy  the  priest  unfolded 
for  me  the  various  sacred  vestments,  which  bore  striking 
resemblance  to  those  of  Catholicism.  I  mentioned  this 
to  the  priest,  who  said  that  they  (Buddhists)  well  knew 
the  origin  of  the  Catholic  vestments,  but  did  not  wish  to 
cause  irritation  by  talking  of  the  matter. 

I  observed  just  outside  the  inner  door  of  this  very 
ancient  temple  a  small  lamp  with  red  light  over  a  basin 
of  holy  water,  from  which  each  one  coming  out  touched 
his  or  her  forehead ;  there  were  also  shrines,  relics,  altar 
bells,  and  rosaries.  It  is  not  easy  to  believe  that  the 
Buddhist  and  Catholic  forms  are  of  independent  origin 
and  very  difficult  to  determine  which  was  the  chief 
borrower.  On  the  outer  walls  of  the  temple  were  mural 
paintings  representing  monstrous  hells  and  devils,  and 
the  torture  of  human  bodies.  I  asked  a  learned  Buddhist 
how  it  was  that  a  religion  of  mercifulness,  which  in  all 
history  never  shed  blood  nor  harmed  even  dangerous 
animals,  could  thus  menace  mortals  with  supernatural 
terrors.  Surprised  by  my  question,  he  replied  that  it  was 
the  great  aim  of  Buddha  to  save  mankind  from  those 
sufferings.  "  But  who,  then,"  I  asked,  "  is  responsible  for 
the  existence  of  such  tortures  in  the  universe  ? "  "  No 
one  is  responsible.  These  are  the  evils  of  nature,  the  con- 
ditions of  existence,  which  no  God  or  demon  originated 
or  causes,  which  not  even  the  power  of  Buddha  could 
abolish,  but  which  he  taught  us  how  to  escape."  I  wished 
to  know  the  popular,  as  distinguished  from  the  theo- 
logical view  of  this  matter,  and  asked  an  intelligent  lay- 
man what  was  his  own  view  of  punishment  after  death. 
His  reply  was:  "None  is  ever  punished  by  other  than 


122  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

himself.  All  the  evil  that  a  man  does  during  life,  if  not 
overbalanced  by  the  good  he  has  done,  forms  at  his  death  a 
retributive  self  of  that  man ;  an  image  of  himself,  uncon- 
scious as  a  machine,  tortures  him  according  to  his  demerits." 

In  one  ancient  fresco  at  Khandy  temple  there  is  pic- 
tured a  man  of  noble  figure  on  a  cross  in  hell.  The  de- 
mons vainly  try  to  harm  him,  while  the  human  forms 
worship  him.  The  painting  is  too  dim  for  me  to  discover 
how  the  form  was  attached  to  the  cross,  or  to  make  out 
the  precise  shape  of  the  cross.  It  seems  to  me  much  ear- 
lier than  the  Portuguese  mission  in  Ceylon  four  centuries 
ago,  but  I  naturally  ascribed  that  particular  picture  to 
Christianity.  Nevertheless  the  word  Stauros  in  the  New 
Testament,  which  we  translate  "  cross,"  really  means  stake, 
the  cruciform  appearing  only  at  the  close  of  the  third 
century.  I  possess  an  old  Persian  picture  representing  a 
personage  of  great  dignity  in  hell,  seated  on  a  sort  of 
throne,  and  unharmed  by  the  demons.  It  may  be  that 
the  figure  in  the  Persian  picture  is  meant  for  Zoroaster, 
and  in  its  transition  to  Khandy  caught  up  the  Christian 
emblem.  However  this  may  be,  the  Parsi  and  the  Sin- 
halese conceptions  of  the  future  are  nearly  the  same.  In 
one  of  our  talks  Subhuti  said,  "  One's  deeds  change  to 
his  devil."  In  the  vision  of  the  ancient  Parsi,  Arda  Viraf, 
it  is  written :  "  In  a  region  of  bleak  cold  wandered  a 
soul  which  had  departed  from  the  earth  ;  and  there  stood 
before  him  a  hideous  woman,  profligate  and  deformed. 
'  Who  art  thou,  who  art  thou,  than  whom  no  demon  could 
be  more  horrible  ? '  To  him  she  answered,  '  I  am  thy 
actions ! ' "  The  good  meet  their  actions  in  the  form  of 
beautiful  maidens. 

I  passed  a  night  at  Khandy,  and  in  the  evening  my 
interpreter,  a  Moslem,  told  me  that  there  was  to  be  a  dis- 


A  MOSLEM   SERMON  123 

course  by  a  missionary  of  his  faith  in  a  private  house,  to 
which,  being  a  Moslem,  he  could  take  me.  The  room  was 
crowded  by  perhaps  sixty  people.  Unfortunately  my  guide 
could  not  whisper  any  translations  of  what  the  speaker 
said,  but  I  managed  to  gather  from  the  exercises  some- 
thing about  them.  The  preacher  or  mollah  was  clearly 
not  a  Sinhalese,  and  I  believe  he  was  a  Persian ;  he  was 
perhaps  forty,  with  some  colour  in  his  cheeks,  an  eye 
alternately  expanding  and  closing,  a  small  intellectual 
face,  and  a  voice  which  easily  passed  from  one  tone  to 
another,  —  didactic,  pathetic,  humorous,  —  with  quick 
gestures  of  arms  and  fingers  for  every  turn.  There  was 
nothing  notable  about  his  dress,  but  he  had  beside  him 
four  readers  in  solemn  garb,  each  with  atlas-like  Korans 
before  them.  From  these  they  recited  in  unison  suras  on 
which  the  mollah  made  commentaries,  introducing  nar- 
rative illustrations  which  deeply  impressed  and  moved 
his  hearers.  My  guide  told  me  afterwards  that  the  nar- 
ratives were  those  of  great  leaders  and  teachers  of  Islam 
who  had  passed  through  ordeals  and  perils  and  achieved 
great  results.  The  Koran  readers  recited  the  verses  with 
rhythmic  beat  and  measure,  staccato  monotone,  as  if 
the  four  had  one  tongue.  The  speaker  waited  in  silence, 
then  suddenly  joined  them  with  exact  rhythm  and  tone 
for  one  line,  at  the  end  of  which  the  readers  stopped, 
while  the  orator  without  any  pause  linked  that  line  to  his 
next  sentence,  in  which  his  own  style  was  resumed.  At 
the  end  of  that  comment  he  fell  into  the  staccato  mono- 
tone, which  the  readers  caught  instantly,  and  went  on 
with  another  Koranic  passage,  while  the  teacher  sat  still. 
The  man's  art  was  perfect ;  there  was  no  loudness,  no 
trick,  but  an  uninterrupted  flow  of  thought  and  feeling 
as  of  a  fountain,  his  whole  form  and  face  shimmering 


124  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

with  its  play.  At  times  there  was  an  instant  of  something 
like  laughter  in  his  voice,  but  it  was  quasi-hysterical, 
and  no  one  smiled.  I  could  not  understand  a  word,  but 
was  sorry  when  it  was  over,  and  went  off  with  thoughts 
of  the  bird  said  to  have  once  perched  on  the  shoulder  of 
Mohammed  while  he  was  preaching. 

An  extremely  ancient  temple  in  Ceylon  is  Kellania. 
Near  it  is  an  enormous  Bo-tree  said  to  have  descended  from 
a  slip  of  the  original  tree  at  Gya  under  which  Sakyamuni 
received  his  illumination  and  became  the  Buddha.  It  is 
nearly  a  day's  journey  in  the  heifer-drawn  vehicle ;  the 
sun  was  very  hot,  the  region  thinly  settled,  and  there  being 
no  inns  it  became  trying.  My  driver  knew  little  English, 
and  it  required  pantomime  to  tell  him  I  was  thirsty. 
Instantly  he  dropped  his  rein,  quickly  climbed  a  palm,  and 
plucked  off  several  green  cocoanuts.  With  his  knife  he 
cut  a  hole  in  the  husk  of  one,  transforming  it  into  a  flask 
of  perfectly  cool  nectar. 

When  I  reached  the  temple  a  beautiful  boy,  nude  but 
for  his  loin  girdle,  approached  me.  He  was  about  twelve, 
spoke  English,  and  was  delighted  at  the  prospect  of  guid- 
ing a  visitor.  There  was  no  village  near  the  temple,  which 
was  a  good  deal  dilapidated.  The  tree  was  wonderful, 
but  that  which  most  interested  me  was  the  crop  of  Bo-tree 
legends  which  had  grown  around  it  and  were  related  to  me 
by  the  boy.  One  was  represented  in  an  isolated  wooden 
house.  To  this  the  lad  conducted  me,  opening  the  door 
with  a  key.  Inside  was  an  image  of  Buddha  seated  under 
a  tree  artificially  modelled  and  erect  in  the  middle  of  the 
room.  The  leaves  on  this  tree  were  all  spear-heads.  When 
I  enquired  about  this  the  lad  related  the  legend  in  words 
that  I  wrote  down  as  nearly  as  I  could :  — 

"  Our  Lord,  when  the  evil  Mara  tried  to  tempt  him 


FOLK-TALES  125 

many  ways,  would  not  yield  to  his  evil  will ;  then  the  evil 
Mara  went  and  brought  a  great  many  horrible  monsters 
to  make  our  Lord  afraid  ;  but  he  was  not  made  afraid ; 
then  the  evil  Mara  made  his  horrible  monsters  to  swoop 
down  on  our  Lord ;  but  all  at  once  every  leaf  on  the  holy 
tree  was  a  spear,  and  the  horrible  monsters  were  all  stuck 
fast  on  the  spears ;  and  our  Lord  sat  there ;  he  was  not 
tempted,  not  afraid,  not  hurt !  " 

I  can  hardly  believe  that  the  boy's  tale  was  literally 
memorized,  for  his  face  was  radiant  as  he  told  it ;  there 
were  also  hesitations,  and  probably  I  was  more  concerned 
to  get  the  legend  exact  than  to  write  down  his  every  word. 
I  was  often  impressed  by  the  care  with  which  children  of 
Buddhist  families  are  instructed  in  the  moral  tales  and 
parables  of  their  religion.  While  the  Christian  mother  is 
telling  her  child  the  story  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  the  Pearl 
searched  for,  the  Leaven  and  Meal,  the  Buddhist  mother 
is  telling  her  child  tales  and  parables  just  as  sweet ;  and 
so  far  as  they  come  from  the  unsophisticated  mother's 
heart  such  instructions  are  alike  in  justice  and  compas- 
sionateness. 

There  are  many  folk-tales  in  the  region  of  Kellania,  and 
one  of  them  is  similar  to  a  legepd  of  Charlemagne.  Elala, 
the  Tamil  king,  placed  beside  his  bed  a  bell  to  which  a 
rope  was  attached  extending  to  the  gate  of  his  palace.  Any 
person  in  his  kingdom,  however  humble,  who  suffered  any 
injustice  might  ring  this  bell  at  any  hour  and  the  king 
would  instantly  arise  and  never  sleep  again  until  the 
wrong  was  redressed.  This  was  in  the  region  of  the 
"Nagas,"  or  serpent-men,  which  may  possibly  be  con- 
nected with  the  legend  that  a  snake  once  coiled  around 
the  rope  and  rang  the  bell  of  Charlemagne,  who  re- 
sponded, and  followed  the  snake  to  its  nest,  found  occu- 


126  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

pied  by  some  other  animal,  which  was  duly  tried,  sen- 
tenced, and  slain. 

When  I  had  the  happiness  of  receiving  a  call  from 
Subhuti  I  questioned  him  about  the  Christian  mission- 
aries. I  knew  him  to  be  incapable  of  untruth  or  unfairness. 
He  said  that  some  of  the  missionaries  troubled  Buddhist 
families;  they  obtruded  into  the  homes  of  the  humble 
people  and  frightened  them.  They  could  only  worry  them, 
as  a  Buddhist  peasant  was  quite  unable  to  comprehend 
any  of  their  dogmas. 

The  idea  of  salvation  by  one's  own  merit  prevails  in 
every  religion  on  the  face  of  the  earth  except  Christianity. 
In  the  Buddhist  world  it  is  the  lesson  taught  from  the 
cradle ;  it  is  the  daily  bread  in  every  household.  In  one 
of  the  villages  through  which  I  passed  with  Judge  Aruna- 
chalam  I  noticed  a  beautiful  baby  in  its  mother's  arms, 
and  pressed  a  piece  of  silver  into  its  pink  hand.  The  child 
whimpered  faintly,  and  the  mother  said  something  to  it  as 
if  it  could  understand.  When  we  left,  the  judge  repeated 
what  the  mother  said :  "  Why  should  you  fret  when  you 
have  received  a  gift  from  a  meritorious  hand  ?  "  The  word 
"meritorious"  was  a  definitive  religious  expression,  and 
referred  to  what  my  indulgent  friend  had  said  of  me. 

I  do  not  remember  a  child  really  crying  in  Ceylon. 
I  mentioned  this  to  a  gentleman  from  Philadelphia  while 
we  were  walking  through  the  crowds  on  a  market  day. 
There  were  swarms  of  children,  but  we  failed  to  hear 
any  crying,  nor  did  we  hear  an  angry  word  exchanged 
between  grown-up  people.  I  could  see  something  of  the 
serene  Buddha  of  the  temples  in  every  Sinhalese  face. 
Of  course  it  was  different  with  the  dark-visaged  Tamils ; 
these  are  taciturn,  and  have  a  look  of  melancholy. 

On  Christmas  eve  I  heard  the  beating  of  tom-toms  in 


CHRISTMAS  EVE   IN    CEYLON  127 

Colombo,  and  learned  that  from  immemorial  times  Decem- 
ber 25  was  the  sacred  day  of  Buddha.  Evil  beings  were 
frightened  away  by  the  tom-toms.  By  this  time  I  had 
formed  friendships  with  several  Buddhists  in  the  town, 
and  one  of  them  —  a  learned  man  —  went  about  with  me. 
I  found  that  the  beating  of  the  tom-tom  was  altogether  by 
women.  My  friend  took  me  into  several  houses.  Behind 
each  was  a  tiny  yard  and  a  circle  of  women  seated  on 
the  ground,  all  beating  little  drums  and  singing,  though 
they  paused  now  and  then  to  converse.  At  the  centre  of 
each  circle  was  a  small  fire.  As  the  night  was  warm,  the 
fire  was  no  doubt  of  some  religious  importance. 

It  is  only  within  the  memory  of  many  now  living  that 
Buddha  has  become  an  eminent  name  in  England  and 
America,  even  among  scholars.  The  popular  enthusiasm 
for  him  was  largely  due  to  Sir  Edwin  Arnold's  poem 
"  The  Light  of  Asia,"  an  adaptation  of  Buddha  to  occi- 
dental pietism  of  little  value  to  critical  students.  The  long 
and  universal  circulation  of  Bunyan's  "Pilgrim's  Pro- 
gress "  was  a  good  preparation  for  the  exaltation  of  a  fab- 
ulous Buddha  who,  after  seeing  the  various  types  of  human 
misery,  abandons  family  and  friends  like  "  Christian  ;  " 
and  it  was  natural  that  Sir  Edwin  should  discover  some 
sort  of  Celestial  City  in  the  Nirvana  —  the  living  suicide 
—  sought  by  Buddha.  Lady  Arnold's  father,  Rev.  W.  H. 
Channing,  on  one  of  his  pilgrimages  to  Concord  (one  of 
his  old  homes)  gave  there  a  lecture  on  Buddha,  whom  he 
so  exalted  that  next  day  a  company  of  ladies  called  on  him 
to  demand  another  lecture  to  say  why  they  should  not  all 
become  Buddhists.  Channing  replied  that  he  was  exceed- 
ingly distressed  that  they  should  have  such  an  idea,  but 
that  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  give  another  lecture.  In 
Channing's  earlier  years,  under  the  stimulating  breath  of 


128  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

New  England  Transcendentalism,  the  word  "  Gome-outer  " 
was  not  jargon,  but  a  solemn  title  of  pilgrims  coming  out 
of  their  several  Cities  of  Destruction.  Though  Buddha  was 
known  as  a  Hindu  nonconformist,  he  remained  an  academic 
figure,  not  being  associated  with  any  ideal  of  progress  or 
reformation  then  appreciable  in  the  West.  Since  then  a 
great  Buddha  literature  has  arisen,  but  without  bringing 
out  any  original  or  distinctive  teaching  by  Buddha  which 
can  explain  the  enormous  proportions  of  Buddhism.  Both 
in  the  East  and  West  interest  and  enthusiasm  centre  in 
the  supposed  or  the  real  man.  What  mankind  want  is  a 
divine  master,  a  preternatural  person ;  and  when  the  par- 
ticular cause  or  urgent  occasion  which  raised  the  leader 
into  eminence  has  disappeared  the  authority  of  his  name 
remains  to  be  claimed  and  utilized  as  a  label  by  each  and 
every  competitive  sect  and  school  of  philosophy.  There 
have  thus  been  two  Buddhas  running  side  by  side  through 
the  ages,  —  the  Teacher  and  the  miraculous  Person.  We 
owe  to  a  few  modern  scholars,  and  chiefly  to  Professor 
T.  W.  Rhys  Davids,  LL.  D.,  the  discovery  of  a  real  indi- 
vidual under  all  those  legendary  and  spiritistic  wrappages 
which  Sir  Edwin  Arnold  has  glorified  in  "  The  Light  of 
Asia."  There  was  then  a  great  man  named  Siddhartha, 
but  he  has  left  no  writings,  and  it  is  difficult  to  discover 
in  teachings  ascribed  to  him  any  original  idea  of  an 
affirmative  or  constructive  kind.  The  phenomena  seem 
to  imply  vast  and  radical  negations. 

If  there  is  anything  historical  about  Siddhartha  it  is 
that  he  denied  the  existence  of  any  deity,  and  denied 
conscious  immortality.  And  no  one  who  has  studied  the 
superstitions  that  passed  for  "  religion  "  in  his  time  can 
wonder  that  clearance  of  the  universe  from  deified  phan- 
tasms and  substitution  of  eternal  repose  for  a  frightful 


LECTURE   IN    COLOMBO  129 

future  were  then  glad  tidings.  Of  course  evolutionary 
laws  modified  such  negations.  If  Nirvana  (annihilation) 
is  the  supreme  thing  the  unborn  are  there,  and  no  logical 
Buddhist  could  bring  any  human  being  into  existence. 
Their  race  would  come  to  an  end. 

On  my  arrival  in  Ceylon  a  delegation  of  young  Brah- 
mans  and  Buddhists  had  invited  me  to  give  a  public  lec- 
ture on  Christmas  day,  and  I  consented.  I  had  with  me 
a  comparative  study  of  the  Birth-legends  of  Jesus  and 
Sakyamuui,  of  which  modifications  were  suggested  by  my 
experience  in  Ceylon.  The  lecture  was  appointed  for  the 
afternoon,  and  I  passed  the  morning  in  the  great  Colombo 
temple.  There,  in  a  series  of  ancient  frescoes,  the  Earth- 
ward Pilgrimage  of  Buddha  is  told.  The  earth  blossoms 
when  he  is  born,  all  gems  in  the  earth  send  up  flames, 
and  from  afar  Wise  Men  (not  angels)  come  to  foretell 
peace  and  good  will  of  man  to  man.  In  another  picture 
the  babe  is  seen  walking,  and  every  step  brings  forth 
a  lotos  flower.  The  legendary  sign  of  Christ's  birth  is  a 
star;  that  of  Buddha's  birth  a  flower. 

A  wondrous  Christmas  day  for  me!  The  Brahmans 
and  Buddhists  had  united  to  make  my  lecture  a  grand 
event ;  canopies  had  been  raised  over  a  large  open  space ; 
a  platform  had  been  made  for  leading  natives,  and 
benches  for  the  crowd,  which  was  large,  the  lecture  being 
gratuitous.  All  had  come  in  fine  raiment,  —  many-col- 
oured robes,  jewelled  turbans,  —  and  nothing  European 
to  mar  the  effect.  Around  us  were  no  walls  but  palms 
and  flowers. 

Was  it  a  dream  ?  How  had  I  got  there  ?  Was  I  in 
any  sense  the  same  as  that  Methodist  youth  who  thirty- 
two  years  before  had  left  his  home  beside  the  Rappa- 
hannock  to  preach  Methodism? 


130  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

I  was  assured  that  my  every  hearer  understood  English, 
that  most  of  them  were  familiar  with  religious  discussions, 
and  some  were  men  of  letters.  The  object  of  my  lecture 
was  not  to  establish  resemblances  between  the  Birth- 
legends  of  Christ  and  Buddha,  but  rather  to  point  out 
that  in  their  respective  myths  were  reflected  their  differ- 
ent aims,  —  one,  happiness  in  another  world ;  the  other, 
happiness  in  this  world. 

Beside  me  on  the  platform  sat  Sumangala,  Priest  of 
Adam's  Peak,  Primate  of  the  Buddhist  world,  with  whom 
I  afterwards  had  much  conversation.  He  was  amiable  as 
well  as  erudite  and  acute.  Our  first  conversation  related 
to  the  Theosophists,  who  had  a  hall  in  Colombo  in 
which  I  heard  a  Buddhist  neophyte  preach  Sunday  morn- 
ing, in  English,  a  sermon  showing  familiarity  with  Inger- 
soll's  works.  In  the  recent  attack  of  Catholics  on  the 
Buddhist  procession,  Colonel  Olcott  had  hastened  to 
Colombo  and  demanded  of  the  government  redress  for  the 
Buddhists.  These  were  naturally  grateful  to  him,  but 
Sumangala  was  troubled  by  the  expositions  of  Buddhism 
given  by  the  Theosophists.  The  pretended  Mahatmas, 
such  as  "  Kotthume,"  he  declared  non-existent.  In  Bud- 
dhist traditions  there  were  famous  ancient  Rishis,  but  they 
are  now  thought  of  only  as  Abraham  and  other  patriarchs 
are  by  Christians  ;  no  real  Buddhist  imagines  any  of  them 
still  living. 

The  Priest  of  Adam's  Peak  presides  over  Widyoaya 
College,  the  Buddhist  institution  some  miles  out  of  Co- 
lombo, whose  faculty  invited  me  to  meet  them  and  the 
students  there.  My  particular  friend,  the  Hon.  P.  Rama- 
nathan  (Brahman),  solicitor-general  of  Ceylon,  called 
to  say  that  if  I  would  go  he  would  accompany  me  and 
interpret  what  was  said.  It  was  arranged  that  the  seance 


SUMANGALA,  PRIEST  OF   ADAM'S  PEAK 


AT  WIDYOAYA   COLLEGE  131 

should  occur  about  dawn,  in  order  to  escape  the  heat  in 
our  drive.  Mr.  Ramanathan  came  to  my  hotel  with  his 
carriage  at  daybreak,  and  we  drove  five  or  six  miles 
through  the  enchanted  land.  For  by  this  time  I  had 
fairly  delivered  myself  up  to  the  sense  of  being  in  Fairy- 
land, and  it  was  without  any  surprise  that  I  alighted  at 
the  ideal  college. 

About  twenty-five  were  present,  a  third  of  them  being 
priests,  others  Pali  scholars  and  young  students.  They 
were  all  Buddhists  except  the  friend  who  came  with  me, 
he  being,  however,  a  sympathetic  student  of  Buddhist  lit- 
erature. I  was  conducted  to  a  chair  in  front  of  the  chief 
priest,  who  sat  on  a  circular  platform,  with  a  table  before 
him,  on  which  lay  his  ancient  palm-leaf  books.  We  were 
sheltered  from  the  glowing  sky,  but  no  walls  were  around 
us.  The  palm-trees  rustled  in  the  breeze,  the  birds  sang 
their  matins,  the  breath  of  flowers  and  blossoming  trees 
interfused  incense  of  the  fresh  day  with  thoughts  that, 
after  two  thousand  years,  had  power  to  blossom  out  of 
their  palm  leaves  and  send  forth  an  odour  sweeter  than 
laurel  or  lotos.  Sumangala  in  his  orange-coloured  gar- 
ment smiled  on  us  all  as  he  took  his  place.  Opening  one 
of  the  three  Pitakas,  the  Arugutta-ranikaya  Sutta,  written 
before  250  B.  c.,  he  read  in  a  clear  sweet  voice  Buddha's 
plea  for  free  thought  —  then  never  translated  into  Eng- 
lish and  to  me  new.  At  certain  parts  he  was  moved,  his 
voice  tended  to  intone,  and  his  eyes  rose  glowing  upon  us, 
as  if  demanding  homage  for  sublime  ideas.  I  obtained 
a  careful  version  of  the  passage  as  read  (Sumangala  had 
slightly  abbreviated  it),  and  it  is  here  given. 

Buddha  came  to  Bihar.  There  certain  princes  welcomed 
him,  telling  him  whence  they  came.  They  said :  "  Vari- 
ous priests  and  Brahmans  pass  through  our  towns  and 


132  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

preach  their  own  doctrines,  speaking  ill  of  the  doctrines  of 
others.  Each  set  is  followed  by  another,  who  tell  us  what 
was  preached  before  them  is  not  true,  saying  '  Listen  to 
us! '  They  who  go  into  and  they  who  come  from  the  wilder- 
ness meet  here.  Thus  our  mind  is  unsettled ;  we  do  not 
know  what  to  believe."  Buddha  said :  "  That  is  but  natu- 
ral. Now  hear  what  I  have  to  say !  Accept  not  the  doc- 
trines that  are  mere  hearsay  —  what  somebody  says  another 
is  preaching.  No  doctrine  is  to  be  accepted  because  believed 
by  one's  father  or  grandfather.  Sometimes  a  clever  man 
clothes  a  doctrine  in  fine  language.  Not  because  a  doc- 
trine is  thus  decorated  is  it  to  be  believed.  Not  because  a 
doctrine  is  written  in  a  book  is  it  to  be  believed.  Some- 
times a  preacher  will  express  a  doctrine  logically ;  but 
not  because  it  is  so  expressed  is  it  to  be  believed.  Some- 
times a  doctrine  is  conveyed  by  the  Nyaya  system  of 
logic,  but  not  even  for  that  is  it  to  be  accepted.  Some- 
times a  doctrine  may  appear  acceptable  on  its  face ;  not 
merely  for  that  is  it  to  be  believed.  Sometimes  a  preacher 
caters  to  the  existing  belief  of  his  hearers ;  not  for  that  is 
his  doctrine  to  be  believed.  Not  because  a  preacher  con- 
ducts himself  according  to  orthodox  rules  is  his  doctrine 
to  be  believed.  Not  because  your  master  or  teacher  says 
it  is  true  should  you  accept  a  doctrine. 

"  But  this  is  the  way  doctrine  should  be  accepted.  In 
your  own  mind  you  must  judge.  What  the  wise  have 
rejected,  and  you  yourself  know  to  be  bad,  that  reject. 
There  is  covetousness ;  will  it  bring  good  or  evil?" 
"Evil,"  answered  the  princes.  "The  coveteous  man," 
said  Buddha,  "  might  murder,  steal,  commit  adultery,  bear 
false  witness,  influencing  others  and  causing  them  to 
follow  his  ways  ;  will  he  not  suffer  a  long  time  ?  "  "  Yes," 
they  replied.  "  Supposing  hatred  engendered,  will  good 
or  evil  follow?  Through  hatred  a  man  may  murder,  steal, 
bear  false  witness ;  will  he  not  suffer  pain  ? "  "  Yes,"  re- 
plied the  princes.  "  Mental  obscurity,  demerits,  crimes 
—  have  the  wise  praised  or  rejected  them?  "  "  They  have 
rejected  them."  "  If  one  accepts  these  as  good,  evil  will 
follow.  If  a  man  purifies  his  mind  of  covetousness,  he 
will  enjoy  happiness.  If  a  man  destroys  all  hatred,  he 


BUDDHA'S   DOCTRINE  133 

will  enjoy  happiness.  If  a  man  have  wisdom,  he  will  enjoy 
all  happiness.  Now  ye  have  judged  for  yourselves.  He 
who  covets  not,  who  hates  not,  is  the  disciple  of  Buddha. 
Good  will  come  to  him ;  he  will  be  enlightened,  he  will 
love  all  beings.  He  will  be  merciful,  he  will  be  happy  in 
others'  happiness.  He  will  not  hate  one  and  love  another, 
but  be  equal  toward  all.  His  friendship,  mercifulness, 
sympathy,  good  will,  shall  go  forth  to  all.  His  equanimity 
shall  be  boundless.  In  this  life  he  will  obtain  fearlessness 
in  four  things:  He  may  say,  'If  there  be  another  world, 
and  if  ill  or  well  affects  it,  I  shall  be  happy.  If  there  be 
no  other  world,  I  have  harmed  none  and  benefited  others, 
and  am  happy.  If  after  death  only  the  wicked  suffer,  I 
have  done  no  evil,  and  need  not  fear.  If  there  be  no 
punishment  for  the  wicked,  I  am  secure.'  "  Buddha  said 
to  the  princes :  "  Are  these  doctrines  good  or  bad  ? " 
They  replied,  "  They  are  good ;  better  than  any  taught 
us  before,"  and  they  became  his  disciples. 

So  ended  the  reading  from  the  Sutta,  and  for  a  few 
moments  there  was  silence.  Mr.  Ramanathan  whispered 
to  me :  "  Is  it  not  strange  that  you  and  I,  come  from 
far  different  religions  and  regions,  should  together  listen 
to  a  sermon  from  Buddha  in  favour  of  that  free  thought, 
that  independence  of  traditional  and  fashionable  doctrines, 
which  is  still  the  vital  principle  of  human  development  ?  " 
"  Yes,"  I  said,  "  and  we,  with  the  princes,  pronounce  his 
doctrines  good."  To  me,  indeed,  it  was  thrilling  that 
from  a  past  of  seventy  generations  should  come  this  voice 
summoning  man  to  rest  his  faith  on  his  own  reason,  and 
trust  his  life  for  eternity  to  virtues  rooted  in  his  own 
consciousness. 

Invited  to  question,  I  asked  the  priest  about  covetous- 
ness,  and  why  it  occupied  such  a  cardinal  place  among 
the  sins.  I  observed  that  all  commerce  is  developed  from 
man's  desire  for  what  belongs  to  his  neighbour.  I  asked 
whether  it  might  not  be  possible  that  originally  the  covet- 


134  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

ous  eye  meant  the  evil  eye ;  it  being  still  believed  in  some 
parts  of  England  that  if  one  strongly  desires  a  thing  be- 
longing to  another,  that  thing  may  be  so  rendered  useless 
to  its  owner  or  even  destroyed.  The  priests  knew  of  no 
such  superstition,  and  Sumangala  said  that  covetousness 
was  not  associated  with  the  things  a  man  desired  to  ex- 
change, and  that  it  was  regarded  by  Buddhism  as  espe- 
cially evil  because  of  its  lasting  effects.  "  There  are  short 
sins  and  long  sins.  Anger  is  a  great  sin,  but  does  not  last 
long.  Covetousness  is  a  small  sin,  but  endures  long  and 
grows.  Even  if  a  man  loves  his  own  things  strongly,  it 
brings  unhappiness;  still  more  if  he  strongly  desires 
what  belongs  to  others.  He  cannot  ascend  in  the  path  to 
Nirvana,  —  the  extinction  of  desire.  There  are  five  sins 
especially  destructive  of  what  bears  man  to  Nirvana,  and 
these  we  reckon  worst,  though  in  immediate  effects  they 
may  appear  least."  "But  suppose,"  I  asked,  "a  man 
strongly  desires  to  go  to  heaven ;  is  that  covetousness  ?  " 
"Yes,"  said  the  priest,  resting  his  chin  upon  the  table 
and  levelling  his  eyes  like  arrows  at  the  head  of  Christian 
faith  ;  "  yes,  it  is  covetousness  to  desire  paradise  strongly. 
One  who  goes  there  with  such  desires  is  as  a  fly  stuck 
fast  in  honey.  Paradise  is  not  eternal.  One  who  goes 
there  must  die  and  be  born  again  elsewhere.  Only  the 
desire  for  Nirvana  escapes  from  the  mesh  that  entangles 
all  other  desires,  because  it  is  not  desire  for  any  object  at 
all."  I  asked :  "  Have  those  who  are  in  Nirvana  any  con- 
sciousness ? "  I  was  then  informed  that  there  is  no  Sin- 
halese word  for  consciousness.  Sumangala  said, "  To  reach 
Nirvana  is  to  be  no  more."  I  pointed  to  a  stone  step  and 
said :  "  One  is  there  only  as  that  stone  is  here  ?  "  "  Not 
so  much,"  answered  the  priest ;  "  for  the  stone  is  actually 
here,  but  in  Nirvana  there  is  no  existence  at  all." 


HON.   P.    RAMANATHAN,   SOLICITOR  GENERAL   OF  CEYLON 


THINGS  RIGHT  YET  SINFUL  135 

A  few  days  after  this  interview  I  received  from  the 
high  priest  an  invitation  to  renew  our  conversation  at  the 
Pali  College.  Oil  this  occasion  he  had  with  him  several 
of  the  most  eminent  priests  in  Ceylon,  and  generally  con- 
sulted them  before  giving  me  answers.  I  enquired  about 
the  Buddhist  doctrine  of  never  taking  the  life  of  any 
creature.  This  doctrine  he  affirmed  very  strongly.  I  put 
a  crucial  test :  a  man  sees  a  tiger  about  to  leap  on  his 
child ;  a  gun  is  in  his  hand ;  should  he  kill  the  tiger  or 
let  it  kill  the  child  ?  There  was  considerable  consultation 
among  the  priests  over  this  crux,  at  the  end  of  which  I 
received  the  following  reply :  "  It  would  be  right  to  kill 
the  tiger,  but  it  would  be  a  sin."  To  persons  unfamiliar 
with  theology  this  might  appear  a  supersubtle  distinction. 
In  fact,  however,  in  western  as  well  as  oriental  theology 
there  are  things  at  once  right  and  sinful.  In  England  it 
is  sinful  to  disobey  the  New  Testament,  yet  if  a  man 
strictly  obeys  the  prescription  for  the  sick  given  in 
James  v,  14,  and  does  not  seek  medical  aid  for  his  sick 
child,  the  law  holds  him  guilty  if  the  child  dies.  The 
development  of  a  similar  anomaly  in  Buddhism  suggests 
that  the  so-called  "atheism"  of  Buddha  himself  was  not 
philosophical  anti-supernaturalism  but  moral  insurrection 
against  the  vile  and  cruel  phantasms  of  popular  fear. 
Buddha's  Sinhalese  hymn  would  run  — 

What  though  the  spicy  breezes 

Blow  soft  o'er  Ceylon's  isle  ; 
Though  every  prospect  pleases 

And  only  gods  are  vile. 

But  his  purely  human  protest  shared  the  fate  of  every 
religion  invested  with  supernaturalism :  it  will  develop 
theological,  i.  e.  fictitious,  notions  of  right  and  wrong 
with  the  invariable  result  that  the  real  is  subordinated  to 


136  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

the  unreal  good  and  evil.  It  is  possible,  however,  that 
Buddhism  caught  this  notion  of  "  sin  "  from  Christianity. 
If  Bishop  Heber  had  been  asked  about  the  people  of 
Ceylon,  after  his  visit  there  in  1826,  he  would  have 
described  them  as  innocent  and  kind ;  his  word  "  vile  " 
means  no  more  than  the  "  miserable  sinners  "  which  pure 
English  maidens  and  children  call  themselves  in  their 
Litany;  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  human  virtues  or 
morals,  but  with  mysterious  failures  in  observances  or 
etiquette  towards  God.  This  is  the  Solomonic  explanation 
of  the  reason  why  benefits  come  to  the  unjust  as  well  as 
to  the  just.  A  hundred  offences  will  not  harm  one  who 
fears  God  properly.  (Eccles.  viii,  13,  14.) 

Every  Buddhist  priest  I  met  impressed  me  favourably. 
They  are  celibate,  but  it  is  perfectly  easy  for  one  who 
wishes  to  marry  to  "  disrobe,"  as  they  say ;  he  is  not  dis- 
liked. Possibly  this  complacency  is  the  result  of  old 
experience.  One  of  them  told  me  an  amusing  legend: 
a  god  disguised  himself  as  a  monster  dog  whose  function 
was  to  devour  immoral  priests ;  immediately  every  mon- 
astery became  vacant!  Easy  divorce  from  priesthood 
appeared  preferable.  If  a  priest  "  falls  "  without  "  dis- 
robing "  he  is  disgraced. 

Subhuti  told  me  that  there  was  once  a  body  of  female 
priests  in  Ceylon.  It  was  necessary  for  a  woman  to  ordain 
a  woman.  The  line  became  extinct,  he  said,  by  reason  of 
the  wars.  In  telling  me  this,  Subhuti  suggested  to  me 
more  than  he  intended.  It  helped  to  confirm  my  belief 
that  the  inferior  position  of  woman  and  her  political 
disability  were  due  to  her  unfitness  for  bloodshed. 

In  1906  it  may  be  pardoned  that  Eeginald  Heber,  a 
young  theologian  of  1826,  ignorant  of  Ceylon  or  its  Ian- 


MAKE-BELIEVE   MOSLEMS  137 

guage  or  religion,  wrote  such  lines  as  "  they  call  us  to 
deliver  their  land  from  error's  chain,"  "  only  man  is  vile," 
"  bows  down  to  wood  and  stone "  (the  chief  example  of 
bowing  to  wood  being  homage  to  a  cross  from  which  the 
crucified  has  vanished).  That  is  pardonable  ;  but  that  such 
a  hymn  should  remain  in  any  modern  hymnal  can  gratify 
only  those  who  find  satisfaction  in  everything  discredit- 
able to  Christian  missions.  It  does  not  gratify  me,  because 
I  know  that  where  the  Protestant  missionary  becomes 
incompetent  there  is  a  soldier  behind  him  able  to  make 
up  for  his  failure. 

We  had  a  story  in  London  of  two  young  English 
scholars  (I  will  not  name  them)  perfected  in  eastern  lan- 
guages, who  were  travelling  together  in  Arabia.  They  had 
got  themselves  up  with  the  exact  Arab  complexion  and 
dress.  At  one  old  village  where  they  arrived  they  found 
themselves  without  money,  their  London  remittances  being 
sent  to  a  farther  city.  While  thinking  what  to  do  they 
observed  a  deserted  mosque  in  bad  condition.  They 
awaited  the  proper  hour  for  Moslem  prayer,  and  from  the 
little  outside  pulpit  sounded  the  loud  usual  call.  The 
startled  villagers  hastened  out,  and  the  two  stained  Eng- 
lishmen recited  finest  passages  from  the  Koran,  professed  a 
mission  to  look  after  all  desolations,  and  warned  them  to 
renovate  that  mosque  or  else  prepare  for  hell.  Then  they 
took  up  a  good  collection  and  went  on  their  way  rejoicing. 
If  any  of  the  Bedouins  had  suspicions  they  were  allayed 
by  the  collection.  The  collection  is  a  sign  of  orthodoxy  in 
all  religions. 

Both  of  these  masqueraders  were  admirers  of  Moham- 
med, and  one  of  them  always  called  himself  a  Moslem. 
But  practically  he  could  hardly  be  a  Moslem.  It  ap- 
pears that  none  of  the  older  religions  now  wish  to  make 


138  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

converts.  They  are  pleased  by  the  sympathy  of  aliens 
with  their  doctrines,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one  born 
outside  could  obtain  practical  membership  as  a  Brahman, 
Parsi,  Buddhist,  or  Israelite.  Buddhism,  Christianity, 
and  Islam  started  as  missionary  religions,  but  now  Chris- 
tianity alone  seems  to  be  very  active  in  that  respect,  and 
its  older  churches  seem  tending  to  confine  missions  to 
their  own  scattered  flocks. 

It  is  no  joke  when  the  youngest  of  nations,  whose  con- 
stitution ignores  religion,  stains  itself  morally  with  pre- 
cisely that  criminal  complexion  which  was  once  attributed 
to  Mohammedanism.  Fifty  years  ago  Protestant  preach- 
ers were  never  weary  of  accusing  Mohammed  of  propa- 
gating his  religion  by  the  sword  ;  but  in  the  opening 
twentieth  century,  our  government  sends  warships  to  the 
chief  Moslem  nation  and  says  in  effect,  "Pay  for  that 
American  missionary  property  damaged  by  a  mob  or  we 
will  murder  your  people  and  burn  your  capital."  And  I 
heard  a  missionary,  lecturing  in  our  Century  Club,  New 
York,  boast  that  by  this  menace  the  American  mission  was 
the  only  one  that  got  its  money !  Of  course,  so  long  as 
comfortable  "  collections  "  can  be  made  in  this  way  it  can 
hardly  be  expected  that  churches  will  turn  from  the  spu- 
rious "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world,"  to  the  genuine  words, 
"  Go  not  into  any  way  of  the  Gentiles,  and  enter  not 
into  any  city  of  the  Samaritans. "  "  If  they  persecute  you 
in  one  city,  go  to  the  next."  That  will  not  do  for  mission- 
aries wrapped  in  the  stars  and  stripes ! 

But  how  far  have  we  fallen  below  President  George 
Washington,  who  in  1796  sent  to  the  Senate  a  treaty 
with  Tripoli,  whose  opening  words  are  these :  — 

As  the  Government  of  the  United  States  of  America 
is  not  in  any  sense  founded  on  the  Christian  religion,  — 


AN  ANGLO-AMERICAN   FUNCTION      139 

as  it  has  in  itself  no  character  of  enmity  against  the  laws, 
religion,  or  tranquillity  of  Mussulmans,  —  and  as  the  said 
States  have  never  entered  into  any  war  or  act  of  hostility 
against  any  Mahometan  nation,  it  is  declared  by  the  par- 
ties that  no  pretext  arising  from  religious  opinions  shall 
ever  produce  an  interruption  of  the  harmony  existing  be- 
tween the  two  countries. 

On  July  3, 1872,  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  London,  was  the 
scene  of  a  combination  of  functions  of  international  inter- 
est. A  large  number  of  dignitaries  of  the  English  Church 
gathered  on  that  Wednesday  to  receive  a  present  from 
the  American  Episcopal  Church.  This  was  a  silver  alms- 
basin.  It  was  brought  by  the  eminent  Bishop  Mcllvaine 
of  Ohio,  who  was  an  excellent  representative  of  the 
American  clerical  type  as  distinct  from  the  English. 
He  had  an  intellectual  face,  delicate  features  under  a 
strong  forehead.  Dressed  in  plain  black,  he  bore  the  enor- 
mous basin  (nearly  a  yard  in  diameter)  up  to  the  altar, 
where  he  had  to  support  it  while  the  Bishop  of  Lichfield 
gave  an  address.  This  bishop  then  received  the  basin  and 
carried  it  before  the  altar ;  there  he  was  met  by  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  before  whom  he  kneeled,  and  who 
made  a  good  fraternal  address.  The  archbishop  then  set 
the  basin  on  the  communion  table,  and  proceeded  to  read 
the  texts  suggestive  of  alms.  There  were  about  ten  other 
bishops  present,  with  a  great  deal  of  scarlet  in  their  robes, 
and  each  in  succession  walked  up  alone,  knelt  before  the 
basin,  dropped  a  coin  into  it,  and  retired.  (I  saw  a  Jap- 
anese near  me  make  a  note  of  this  apparent  worship  of 
the  silver  basin!)  After  the  bishops  the  vergers  came 
up  with  a  dozen  red  velvet  purses.  The  Anglo-American 
function  had  been  united  with  the  anniversary  of  the  Soci- 
ety for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts. 


140  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

The  alms-basin  thus  began  its  career  by  receiving  gifts 
for  the  propagation  of  the  Gospel  around  the  world,  which 
now,  thirty  years  since  the  good  Bishop  Mcllvaine  was 
buried  with  honour  in  London  (1873),  has  come  to  mean 
a  propagation  by  the  edge  of  the  sword.  The  humility  of 
the  Ohio  gentleman  could  not  conceal  the  complacency 
of  the  sect  which  in  its  address  spoke  of  itself  as  the 
"American  Church,"  which  with  that  of  England  made 
the  "  two  branches  of  the  one  Holy  Catholic  Church."  I 
remember  an  exchange  of  smiles  among  the  large  con- 
tingent of  Broad  Church  clergymen  at  the  high  ecclesi- 
astical tone  of  the  address ;  and  indeed  it  had  for  some 
time  been  a  sort  of  proverb  among  them  that  the  "  apos- 
tolic succession"  notion  was  American.  Mrs.  Hewson, 
daughter  of  Bishop  Mcllvaine,  told  me  that  her  father 
was  cabled  while  in  Europe  to  present  the  basin,  and, 
his  episcopal  robes  being  in  America,  the  English  bish- 
ops tried  to  find  among  their  own  one  that  would  fit  him. 
In  vain.  All  were  too  small  for  the  tall  American,  who,  his 
silk  stockings  being  out  of  sight,  was  hardly  distinguish- 
able from  an  ordinary  clergyman.  Was  this  inadequacy 
of  the  English  prelatical  dress  for  the  American  prelate 
symbolical  ?  It  was  noticed  by  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln  that 
the  gift  from  America  nearly  coincided  with  the  date  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  it  appeared  to  me 
droll  that  in  theology  independence  should  be  more  char- 
acteristic of  the  English  than  of  the  American  Episco- 
pal Church.  A  demonstration  of  this  was  given  in  the 
fact  that  the  sermon  on  the  occasion  was  by  the  Bishop 
of  Exeter,  —  even  that  Dr.  Frederick  Temple,  author  of  a 
rationalistic  chapter  in  "  Essays  and  Reviews,"  whose  pro- 
motion to  the  Bench  of  Bishops  was  so  heavy  a  blow  to 
the  protesting  Evangelicals.  Those  who  hoped  that  in 


DR.   TEMPLE'S   SERMON  141 

this  sermon  on  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  the  Bishop 
would  unsay  what  he  had  said,  as  simple  Dr.  Temple,  in  his 
startling  essay  on  "  The  Education  of  the  World,"  were 
disappointed.  The  sermon  was  a  concio  ad  clerum,  and 
those  who  had  ears  to  hear  recognized  in  it  the  same  cen- 
tral idea  as  that  of  the  censured  essay. 

His  text  was  Rom.  xi,  15,  "  For  if  the  casting  away  of 
them  be  the  reconciling  of  the  world,  what  shall  the  re- 
ceiving of  them  be  but  life  from  the  dead  ?  "  The  bishop 
showed  that  the  casting  away  of  the  Jews  was  due  to  the 
expansion  of  the  gospel  to  include  the  Gentiles.  The  Jews 
had  gathered  in  great  numbers  to  the  religion  of  Christ, 
until  Paul  and  others  began  to  interpret  it  as  a  religion 
for  mankind.  They  were  ready  to  embrace  it  so  long  as 
they  could  regard  it  as  only  a  reformed  Judaism.  He 
then  went  on  to  suggest  that  the  spread  of  Christianity 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth  was  very  slow,  and  its 
conversions  in  foreign  parts  very  few,  chiefly  because  it 
(Christianity)  was  undergoing  a  process  of  expansion. 
Christians  will  not  see  their  religion  triumph  in  the  world 
until  they  have  learned  their  own  lesson  better.  It  must 
first  become  a  larger  thing  in  their  own  minds. 

This  tall,  large-framed  bishop,  with  his  glittering  black 
eyes,  and  black  hair  and  whiskers,  and  his  loud  clear 
voice,  spoke  without  any  accent  of  timidity  either  towards 
the  right-wing  churchmen,  whose  eyes  were  fixed  sharply 
upon  him,  or  towards  Dean  Stanley  and  his  group,  who 
were  all  present.  He  said  that  although  the  foreign  pro- 
pagation of  Christianity  was  at  a  standstill,  the  impor- 
tant fact  remained  that  Heaven  had  married  heavenly 
light  to  earthly  light.  "  The  wisest  and  most  civilized 
nations  are  Christian." 

This  almost  seemed  true  when  that  same  bishop  be- 


142  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

came  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  But  alas !  since  his  time 
the  American  churches  have  apparently  resolved  not  to 
let  foreign  enlargement  wait  for  their  own  spiritual  en- 
largement at  home.  The  marriage  is  of  Gospel  to  Gun- 
powder. As  the  late  Lord  Salisbury  said,  the  missionary 
is  regularly  followed  by  the  soldier.  Of  course  there  are 
some  rationalists  who,  believing  that  the  process  makes 
ultimately  for  "  progress,"  may  see  with  satisfaction  Chris- 
tianity rendering  itself  odious  all  round  the  world.  The 
missionary  already  alluded  to,  who  lectured  for  us  at  the 
Century  Club,  invoked  our  horror  at  Turkish  intolerance 
because  they  are  forbidden  to  sing  such  hymns  as  "  On- 
ward, Christian  Soldier  ! "  For  myself,  that  gave  me  an 
impression  that  the  Moslems  have  now  become  the  peace- 
makers, and  that  they  know  by  long  experience  that  the 
"  Christian  Soldier  "  has  never  been  contented  with  a  mere 
spiritual  sword.  The  title  of  Chinese  Gordon  in  the  Sou- 
dan was  "  Our  Christian  Soldier." 


CHAPTER  VII 

New  Year's  eve  in  Cinnamon  Gardens  —  Hon.  P.  Ramanathan's  banquet 
—  Devil-dances  —  Sinhalese  demonology  —  Entertainment  in  the  palace 
of  Muta  Kumara  Swamy  —  The  Nautch  dancers  —  "  The  Martyr  of 
Truth  "  (Harischandra)  —  Wagnerite  music. 

AMONG  the  conceivable  sensations  of  existence  I  had 
never  imagined  —  unless  in  some  early  day-mare 
dream  of  transmundane  torments  —  any  comparable  with 
those  which  made  memorable  my  New  Year's  eve.  The 
Hon.  P.  Ramanathan  invited  me  to  his  beautiful  bunga- 
low in  Cinnamon  Gardens,  and  there  I  met  at  dinner  a 
number  of  Hindu  and  Sinhalese  gentlemen  who  possessed 
scholarly  knowledge  of  the  history  and  traditions  of  their 
island.  It  was  no  heavy  prosaic  dinner  such  as  their  Eng- 
lish neighbours  might  have  imported  to  give  them  the 
ailments  they  ascribed  to  the  climate,  but  light  and  dainty : 
Sinhalese  oysters,  snipe,  curries,  salads,  bandaka  (egg- 
plant), other  delicate  vegetables,  island  fruits,  and  the 
lightest  French  wines.1  While  we  were  taking  our  cigars 
and  coffee  on  the  veranda,  soft  breezes  whispering  through 
the  palm  and  mango,  fireflies  fringing  the  entire  gardens, 
the  air  laden  at  once  with  fragance  and  rhythmic  cadence 
of  a  myriad  tiny  creatures  in  their  slumbrous  vespers, 

1  At  the  Gall  Face  Hotel,  Colombo,  our  Scotch  host  had  a  poor  table, 
but  on  Christmas  we  saw  "  sweetbreads  "  on  the  menu,  and  prepared  for  a 
treat.  The  sweetbreads  were  little  cakes  of  dough  sweetened  with  sugar ! 
Surrounded  by  coffee  plantations,  we  could  not  get  a  cup  of  coffee,  but  only 
tea.  He  promised  one  day  to  procure  us  coffee,  but  when  it  came  two  morn- 
ings later,  it  was  so  suggestive  of  a  decoction  of  burnt  corks  that  we  con- 
tented ourselves  with  the  tea.  Between  San  Francisco  and  Venice  I  found 
no  good  hotels. 


144  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

wafted  me  into  dreamland.  Presently,  I  said,  a  turbaned 
magician  will  clap  his  hands  and  all  will  disappear  — 
these  pleasant  gentlemen,  these  palms,  the  fireflies  —  all ! 
I  shall  rub  my  eyes,  see  a  London  fog,  turn  over,  and 
doze  again.  Not  so !  But  the  dream  is  destined  to  pass 
into  a  fantastic  realm. 

My  host  had  read  my  "  Demonology  and  Devil-Lore ; " 
he  knew  my  interest  in  the  diabolic  fauna  of  Ceylon,  and 
determined  that  for  once  I  should  have  enough  of  them. 
The  wild  people  called  "  devil-dancers  "  are  not  found  in 
or  near  Colombo  ;  English  customs  have  frightened  them 
into  remote  places.  My  host  with  characteristic  consid- 
erateness  had  brought  twenty  or  more  devil-dancers  from 
the  hills  to  perform  their  weird  orgies  before  the  door. 

The  Hindu  servants  of  the  family  are  accustomed  dur- 
ing the  month  between  December  12  and  January  12  to 
design  a  mosaic  of  flour  and  flowers  with  small  animal 
figures  on  the  ground  in  front  of  the  veranda.  At  five 
points  of  it  are  flowers,  their  stems  stuck  in  small  balls  of 
a  substance  which  it  requires  all  a  cow's  sanctity  to  dig- 
nify. Petals  are  also  strewn  about  over  the  figures,  whose 
object  is  to  drive  away  the  devils  ;  and  one  may  remember 
how  in  Goethe's  "  Faust "  the  angels  pelt  the  devils  with 
flowers,  which  sting  them  like  flames.  But  these  Hindu 
charms  had  no  effect  upon  our  devil-dancers.  It  was  just 
there  that  the  scene  took  place.  Unforewarned  of  any  per- 
formance, I  was  bewildered  by  a  flare  of  torches  approach- 
ing from  various  quarters,  held  by  men  nearly  naked. 

Then  there  was  low  beating  of  tom-toms.  Presently  a 
man  began  to  drawl  out  a  wild  wailing  chant,  in  which 
another  and  then  another  joined.  There  were  words,  but 
the  gentlemen  present,  though  all  linguists,  could  not 
make  out  the  patois ;  one  of  them  told  me  the  singers 


THE   DEVIL-DANCE  145 

themselves  probably  did  not  know  the  meaning  of  their 
rune.  By  this  time  a  considerable  crowd  of  people  had 
gathered  about  the  outer  columns  of  the  portico,  and  the 
flaring  of  the  torches  on  their  shining  black  bodies  and 
eager  faces  made  a  wondrous  scene. 

At  length  a  robust  fellow  cleared  a  space,  and  we  were 
informed  that  the  devil-dance  would  be  preceded  by  a 
"kolum"  (extravaganza).  Thereupon  two  appear  in 
grotesque  masks,  embroidered  red  and  green  blouses, 
belts  with  jingles,  white  trousers  reaching  to  midway  the 
leg,  and  plumed  caps.  After  a  minute's  dancing  around 
each  other  they  stopped  and  conversed.  Their  words  were 
translated  for  me :  "  Can  you  dance  ?  "  "  Yes."  "  How  do 
you  dance?  "  "As  you  have  seen  me  doing  all  this  time." 
"  Can  you  turn  a  somersault?"  "  I  am  going  to  do  that." 
The  questioner  grapples  and  hugs  him  roughly.  "  I  have 
been  stopped  from  a  somersault  by  your  embrace."  "  I  am 
Don  Helenes  de  Silva,  soldier."  "  And  I  am  Milord  the 
soldier."  Both  of  them  then  recount  the  terrific  battles 
through  which  they  have  passed,  conquering  all  their  foes, 
and  compare  their  multitudinous  wounds.  They  then 
dance  slowly  around  in  cautious  pursuit,  as  if  for  a  grap- 
ple, but  suddenly  take  to  their  heels. 

An  old  man  with  a  long  white  beard  now  approaches  — 
led  by  a  young  woman  whitened  by  chalk.  After  some 
dancing  by  these  two,  the  old  man  stops  to  cough  and 
gasp.  The  young  woman  mimics  the  cough  and  everything 
else  done  by  this  aged  man,  whom  they  call  "  Pannikera," 
which  may  mean  "  pantaloon."  A  young  man  enters 
and  tells  the  bystanders  that  the  aged  man  is  his  son. 
They  cry  out  at  the  impossibility.  The  old  man  says  that 
he  had  been  three  times  married,  and  adds  (to  the  youth), 
"  I  am  here  to  dance  by  the  king's  order,  but  have  re- 


146  ;MY   PILGRIMAGE 

ceived  no  invitation  ;  as  penalty  you  must  dance  and  go." 
This  the  youth  did,  and  the  ballet  ended. 

During  this  performance  the  tom-toms  and  the  unison 
of  intoning  voices  were  incessant.  But  when  "kolum" 
had  ended,  and  the  devil-dance  was  about  to  begin,  the 
vocal  and  instrumental  overture  was  furious.  There  was 
no  change  in  the  tune,  but  the  time  was  accelerated,  the 
beats  changed,  the  voices  became  louder  and  wilder.  There 
was  something  distinctly  diabolical  in  the  notes,  which,  in 
combination  with  the  silent  throng  of  nearly  naked  people, 
their  white  eyes  lighting  up  their  dusky  faces,  along  with 
the  lurid  torches,  caused  sensations  to  shoot  through  one's 
nerves. 

A  deafening  succession  of  tom-tom  thumps  accompanied 
the  entrance  before  us  of  the  Serpent  King,  Naga  Rajah. 
His  mask,  face  and  crown  together,  represented  every  ter- 
rible and  beautiful  curve  and  contortion  of  the  cobra. 
Serpents  (realistic  in  the  dusk)  coiled  out  of  the  corners 
of  his  many-fanged  mouth  and  about  his  huge  protruding 
eyes  and  made  the  pendants  of  his  ears,  the  heads  and 
hoods  of  five  cobras  rising  to  make  the  canopy  of  his 
crown.  With  him  came  his  prime  minister,  who  also 
succeeded  well  in  his  mask  of  serpent  decorations,  having 
above  his  head  three  huge  hooded  cobra-heads  and  three 
smaller.  With  these  was  a  third,  crowned  with  five  co- 
bras. The  three  faces  were  blood-red,  goggle-eyed,  tusky, 
the  forms  dressed  in  red  with  touches  of  green,  beneath 
which  patches  of  black  skin  were  discernible  as  they 
threw  themselves  about  in  sinuous  ecstasies.  The  theme 
of  their  dance,  though  they  spoke  no  word,  was  evidently 
the  serpent ;  they  coiled,  twisted,  twined,  and  wrung  their 
necks  so  long  as  to  make  one  uneasy.  Possibly  we  were 
witnessing  a  travesty  of  ancient  rites  of  serpent-worship. 


LEGEND   OF  THE   BLACK   PRINCE      147 

These  Nagas  (serpents)  are  the  legendary  beings  believed 
to  have  inhabited  Ceylon  before  it  was  occupied  by  human 
beings.  Ferguson  identifies  them  as  serpent-worshippers, 
but  I  incline  to  the  conjecture  that  the  serpent  was  their 
ensign.  Besides  the  Nagas  the  Sinhalese  believed  in  Yak- 
khos,  a  sort  of  hobgoblin  formed  from  human  beings  who 
lived  wickedly,  or  who  were  not  burned  or  buried  with 
proper  ceremonies.  There  were  swarms  of  these  whom  the 
priests  were  often  required  to  expel  from  the  houses,  all 
domestic  mishaps  being  attributed  to  these  mischievous 
creatures.  These  two  classes  of  demons  —  Nagas  and 
Yakkhos  —  have  official  leaders,  and  some  of  these  have 
special  traditions.  I  recognized  a  legendary  personage  in 
a  performer  who  followed  the  three  Nagas  just  described. 
They  called  him  Kalu  Cumara,  the  Black  Prince,  but 
none  present  seemed  to  know  his  legend,  with  which  I 
met  some  years  before.  The  manager  of  the  show  told 
me,  through  a  gentleman,  that  this  Black  Prince  "  lived  on 
a  mountain  and  was  surrounded  by  she-devils."  I  asked  if 
it  were  not  true  that  women  attributed  all  their  ailments 
to  him,  and  was  promptly  answered,  "  Yes."  The  early 
legend,  which  had  died  out  of  popular  tradition,  was  that 
this  prince  was  once  beautiful ;  a  race  of  female  warriors 
besieged  his  kingdom,  but  on  seeing  him  all  fell  in  love 
with  him.  Each  tried  to  appropriate  him,  and  among 
them  he  was  torn  to  pieces.  He  then  became  a  demon, 
and  has  since  avenged  himself  on  the  wljole  female  race. 
The  classic  Amazons  have  thus  survived  as  she-devils.  I 
glanced  around  me  and  thought  I  could  see  a  shrinking 
back  in  the  crowd  when  this  Black  Prince  came  dashing 
in.  He  flared  large  torches  with  both  hands,  and  two 
other  torches  were  held  in  each  corner  of  the  mouth  of  his 
hideous  mask.  He  never  rested  an  instant,  but  danced 


148  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

and  leaped  furiously,  going  through  movements  express- 
ing convulsions,  gripings,  delirium,  epilepsy,  often  setting 
fire  to  his  beard  and  clothes  in  an  alarming  way. 

When  this  fiery  demon  had  vanished  the  tom-toms 
became  slower,  the  chant  more  solemn,  and  there  marched 
in  King  Nala  and  his  Queen  Damayanti.  The  king's 
crown  was  a  sort  of  pyramid  of  small  gods  and  goddesses, 
that  of  the  queen  a  temple.  The  complexions  of  the  two 
were  fair,  and  their  movements  majestic.  They  were  fol- 
lowed by  a  hideous  snaky  Naga,  whom  I  took  to  be  the 
serpent-king  —  said  in  Hindu  legend  to  have  bitten  King 
Nala.  This  king  gambled  away  his  kingdom,  and  while 
wandering  was  transformed  to  a  misshapen  dwarf  by  the 
Naga's  bite.  Nala  recovered  his  wife  (Damayanti)  and 
kingdom  again,  and  forgave  his  brother,  who  by  charmed 
dice  had  won  his  kingdom.  All  that  we  here  saw  of  the 
great  episode  of  the  Mahabharata,  which  Dean  Milman 
translated  into  English  verse,  was  but  the  ideal  king  and 
queen  and  the  possible  Naga.  There  was  next  a  female 
Naga,  said  to  personify  some  disease.  A  Sinhalese  phy- 
sician presently  told  me  that  when  a  woman  is  ill  of  chorea 
or  other  nervous  complaint,  they  place  before  her  some 
such  hideous  image.  Then  the  devil-dancers  begin  to 
dance  in  order  to  draw  the  "  possession  "  from  the  patient 
to  themselves,  and  presently  the  patient  gets  up  and  dances 
with  them.  Then  they  speak  to  the  demon  supposed  to 
possess  her,  and  jsay,  "  When  do  you  mean  to  leave  this 
woman?"  Generally  there  is  no  reply  until  after  they 
have  flogged  the  patient  once  or  twice,  when  through  her 
lips  the  demon  says  he  will  leave  when  a  certain  branch 
of  a  certain  tree  falls.  She  names  with  precision  the  tree 
and  branch,  and  somebody  always  manages  to  have  that 
branch  fall  soon.  This  physician  said  it  was  all  mesmer- 


CHARACTERS  OF  THE  DANCE          149 

ism ;  but  that  the  oflly  ailments  cured  are  imaginary,  as 
is  the  method  of  cure. 

Next  we  had  some  Hindu  demons  —  Rakshasas,  for  the 
Yakkhos,  formidable  in  Ceylon,  are  in  India  the  gen- 
erally harmless  goblins  called  Yakkhas.  The  grand  king 
of  the  Rakshasas  (Havana)  made  his  appearance,  about 
which  the  most  notable  thing  was  his  terrible  teeth.  This 
conqueror  of  nature,  prince  of  this  world,  for  whose  de- 
struction Vishnu  was  incarnate  as  Ramachandra,  seems  to 
have  been  shorn  of  some  of  his  terrors  in  Ceylon,  notably 
of  the  ten  heads  and  twenty  arms  ascribed  to  him  in  the 
Ramayana.  However,  he  was  sufficiently  ugly,  as  indeed 
was  Purnakaya,  the  Sinhalese  Devil.  The  latter  was  fol- 
lowed by  "  Kotiya,  "  the  tiger-demon  (spotted  and  crouch- 
ing), and  "  Mukara  Toranaye,"  a  fish-demon.  Not  so  ugly, 
yet  fierce,  was  Kalinga,  the  lion-man,  from  whom  the 
Veddahs  (primitive  inhabitants  of  Ceylon,  of  whom  two 
thousand  remain)  are  traditionally  descended.  A  fox- 
demon,  a  house-devil,  passed  before  us  ;  and  then  there  was 
an  interval  in  which  were  represented  oriental  costumes  and 
characters  —  a  Pariah,  a  Dobi  (washerwoman),  Chitty 
(tradesman),  etc.  Among  these  was  a  negro  (the  only  one 
I  saw  in  Ceylon)  in  military  dress,  his  cap  marked 
"  1882."  One  performer  had  the  headdress  of  a  Mudliar 
(personage  of  high  rank),  but  otherwise  wearing  only  the 
Tamil  loin-cloth.  This  caused  merriment.  "  Who  are 
you  ?  "  asked  our  host.  "  A  Mudliar,"  was  replied  from 
beneath  the  mask.  "  Why  have  you  not  the  Mudliar's 
dress  and  sword ?  "  "I  was  too  sleepy  to  put  them  on." 
There  was  good  cause  for  the  poor  fellow's  sleepiness ;  it 
was  midnight.  In  the  finale  there  moved  before  us  an 
embodiment  of  malaria  that  recalled  to  me  Blake's  pic- 
ture of  the  same  as  a  slimy  green  sower  scattering  seeds ; 


150  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

then  delirium  appeared,  and  finally  a  fearful  livid  mask, 
with  abysmal  mouth,  and  teeth  like  a  saw,  —  Death.  This 
was  the  last. 

The  chief  Hindu  deity,  Indra,  and  Sakra,  his  personi- 
fied alias  in  Ceylon,  came  to  bid  us  good-night  and  re- 
ceive compliments  on  the  interesting  demons  provided  in 
their  universe.  They  were  all  demons,  personifying  the 
diseases  and  obstructions  of  the  physical  man  ;  there  was 
not  a  devil  among  them,  for  devils  do  not  repel  but 
allure ;  they  are  not  ugly  but  fascinating.  In  the  seventh 
century  the  Rakshasas  of  Ceylon  were  pictured  as  beauti- 
ful seductive  women. 

At  length  the  torches  "were  extinguished,  the  dusky 
crowd  at  the  doors  disappeared  among  the  mangoes  and 
palms.  Our  revels  were  ended ;  the  demons  had  all 
changed  into  painted  cardboard  and  spangles,  borne  in 
bundles  on  the  shoulders  of  men  and  women,  moving 
under  the  silent  stars  and  past  their  silent  temples. 

As  I  drove  to  my  hotel  beside  the  sea,  after  midnight, 
the  houses  of  the  Sinhalese  city  were  dark,  except  for  the 
English  church,  from  whose  windows  brilliant  lights 
streamed  out  over  the  lake  and  the  Common.  These 
Christians  were  keeping  Watch-Night,  and  wrestling  with 
the  invisible  principalities  and  powers  of  the  universe.  If 
these  should  be  given  visible  forms  and  faces,  how  far 
would  they  resemble  those  of  the  demonology  of  Ceylon  ? 
Among  the  so-called  devils  on  the  ancient  church  walls 
of  Europe  one  rarely  discovers  the  tempting  Satan,  but 
much  such  grotesque  forms  of  pains,  diseases,  obstruc- 
tions, as  those  that  played  their  phantasmagoria  in  a  fair 
garden  on  that  New  Year's  eve,  1883.  Mephistopheles 
reminds  Faust  that  the  Devil  participates  in  modern  cul- 
ture, but  really  it  has  evolved  him  out  of  existence. 


EXORCISM  151 

In  1854,  when  the  opera  of  "  Don  Giovanni "  was  per- 
formed in  Boston,  I  remember  well  a  swarm  of  little  red 
devils  —  girls  and  boys  in  scarlet  tights  —  coming  out 
of  a  mediaeval  "  mouth  of  hell "  and  parrying  the  wicked 
Don  into  it.  It  did  not  awe  the  spectators  but  amused 
them,  and  I  suggested  to  the  poet  Longfellow,  in  whose 
box  I  sat,  that  the  devils  had  better  be  omitted.  "  It  is 
some  satisfaction  to  see  some  practical  infliction  of  the 
condign,"  he  said.  It  would  not  be  enough  to  trust,  as 
Shakespeare  usually  did,  to  the  scourge  of  a  conscience 
no  longer  existing.  I  remembered  those  little  red  devils 
while  in  Ceylon,  and  wondered  how  such  an  innocent 
population  could  have  been  built  up  without  any  punisher 
of  moral  offences.  But  Buddha  declared  virtue  to  be  as 
natural  to  man  as  grass  to  the  fields. 

In  an  article  on  Demonology  and  Witchcraft  in  Ceylon 
("  Journal  of  the  Ceylon  Branch  of  the  Royal  Asiatic 
Society,"  1865-66),  the  very  learned  Dundris  Gooneratue 
Modliar  quotes  literally  formulas  for  exorcising  demons 
from  persons  whose  ailments  were  believed  to  be  "  posses- 
sions." In  some  Hindu  divinities,  in  others  Christian 
names  are  invoked.  When  an  exorcism  begins  the  "  devil" 
demands  through  the  lips  of  the  possessed  a  "human 
sacrifice ; "  a  cock  is  generally  substituted.  If  the  devil 
still  troubles  his  victim  he  (the  devil)  is  "  bound  and 
nailed  to  a  tree."  A  nail  of  consecrated  kind  is  driven 
into  a  living  tree,  and  a  consecrated  thread  coiled  around 
it,  with  charms,  and  by  this  pantomime  and  sufficient  faith 
—  the  patient  in  ninety-nine  cases  of  a  hundred  is  a 
woman  —  the  afflicting  demon  is  expelled.  This  combina- 
tion of  notions  foreign  to  any  native  religion  in  Ceylon,  — 
human  sacrifice,  vicarious  substitution,  nailing  to  a  tree, — 
impresses  me  as  something  made  up  from  the  early  Portu- 


152  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

guese  instructions  by  the  native  medicine-men.  There  is, 
or  was,  in  each  remote  neighbourhood  a  native  Catholic 
official  called  the  Annery,  in  the  potency  of  whose  exor- 
cisms the  natives  have  a  good  deal  of  faith.  He  shows 
the  demon  in  the  patient  a  cross  and  images  of  saints,  and 
asks  if  she  knows  what  they  are.  At  this  some  tremble  and 
try  to  avoid  looking  at  them.  The  Lord's  Prayer  and  a 
prayer  to  the  Virgin  are  read  over  to  her  seven  times ; 
after  it  a  written  native  charm  (Rattu  mandiram)  is 
folded  in  paper,  sprinkled  with  holy  water,  and  hung  at 
her  neck.  The  Annery  then  says  :  "  Leave  this  woman 
and  go  thy  way !  I  charge  thee,  demon,  in  the  name  of 
the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  —  name  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  and  all  the  saints  —  leave  her  this  instant,  or  thou 
shalt  be  punished  severely."  If  the  demon  says  through 
the  woman's  lips,  "  I  won't,"  she  is  struck  on  the  back 
with  the  tail  of  a  skate-fish  over  which  a  charm  (kattu) 
has  been  said.  After  seven  or  eight  blows  the  demon  is 
overpowered ;  the  woman  usually  recovers  her  senses. 

There  is  no  twilight  in  Ceylon.  When  the  sun  sets  dark- 
ness falls  suddenly  upon  the  earth,  and  the  stars  shine  out 
as  if  some  hand  had  turned  on  the  starlight.  And  it  is 
thick  darkness  too ;  so  thick  that  an  anthropological  spec- 
ulation is  born  in  my  mind,  that  the  dark  complexions 
are  due  to  a  primitive  survival  of  the  night-like.  A  dark 
Sinhalese  or  Tamil  is  invisible  against  the  night,  and 
the  tread  of  his  bare  feet  is  inaudible.  The  lighter,  more 
visible  varieties  of  their  race  would  have  been  killed 
off  by  invaders  and  wild  beasts,  and  the  dark  would  be 
passed  by.  In  addition  to  this  the  predatory  class  would 
be  successful  in  the  proportion  that,  as  is  said  in  the 
Book  of  Job,  they  were  marked  by  the  night.  The  Co- 
lombo coachman  will  not  drive  a  step  after  six  o'clock 


A  SINHALESE   MANSION  153 

unless  his  lamps  are  lit,  lest  lie  should  run  over  a  sleep- 
ing native. 

This  darkness  lends  a  special  beauty  to  the  bungalows 
of  the  rich,  which  appear  illuminated,  the  rays  from  their 
lamps  shining  through  the  foliage  in  a  mystical  way, 
especially  if  they  be  cocoanut-oil  lamps,  which  give  a  soft 
spiritual  light. 

The  most  palatial  bungalow  I  saw  in  Colombo  was  that 
of  Mutu  Kumara  Swamy,  whose  hospitality  and  that  of 
his  brothers  was  extended  to  me  in  consideration  for  my 
friendship  for  their  deceased  uncle,  Sir  Kumara  Swamy. 
Sir  Kumara  while  studying  in  London  had  given  a  course 
of  lectures  in  my  chapel,  on  the  various  Indian  philoso- 
phies ;  he  had  attended  our  receptions,  and  at  one  of  them 
met  a  beautiful  young  English  lady  whom  he  married. 

As  I  drove  up  through  the  large  park  of  palms  radiant 
with  fireflies,  the  bungalow  looked  like — but  I  am  sadly 
in  need  of  new  similitudes.  I  have  used  up  Fairyland, 
and  am  trying  to  write  without  referring  to  the  "  Arabian 
Nights,"  but  it  is  not  easy  when  I  recall  the  verandas,  por- 
ticoes, rooms  of  Mutu  Kumara  Swamy's  mansion,  and  the 
entertainment  he  gave  me.  The  tropical  heat  was  made 
pleasant  by  the  gentle  wind  blowing  from  the  neighbour- 
ing sea  through  the  open  doors.  It  was  difficult,  as  one 
passed  amid  the  flowering  trees  and  floral  festoons,  to  say 
just  where  the  garden  ended  and  the  veranda  began,  or 
even  the  drawing-room,  which  had  flower-laden  trees  in 
each  corner  —  flowers  and  wreaths  everywhere.  In  front 
of  the  chair  of  honour  to  which  I  was  conducted,  stood  a 
high  table,  and  thereon  a  silver  salver  covered  with  stem- 
less  flowers  carefully  arranged.  From  the  centre  of  the 
salver,  nearly  a  yard  long,  rose  slowly  burning  stems, 
whose  incense  filled  the  air  with  sweet  and  subtle  per- 


154  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

fume.  The  odours,  mingled  with  the  soft  light  of  the 
cocoa  lamps,  shed  their  influence  upon  seers  and  scene 
with  a  strange  effect.  When  our  beautiful  hostess  entered, 
with  her  rich  oriental  robe,  and  the  turbaned  Tamil  took 
his  place  behind  her  with  a  large  peacock  fan,  I  said, 
"No  doubt  that  is  Maya,  goddess  of  Illusion,  who  has 
waved  her  wand  and  begun  her  air-woven  masque."  But 
when  presently  a  blonde  young  English  lady  entered,  in 
unmistakable  evening  dress,  realism  came  with  her  hu- 
morous clear  eyes. 

It  was  pretty  Mrs.  Thwaites,  who  had  given  me  a  din- 
ner company  on  their  coffee  plantation,  and  who  wickedly 
laughed  when  I  coughed,  and  my  host  had  to  remove  the 
stems  of  incense.  There  were  two  or  three  other  English 
ladies  present,  and  we  had  an  opportunity  of  satisfying 
our  curiosity  in  several  things  —  for  instance,  chewing  a 
little  betel  and  making  our  teeth  red  with  it. 

On  the  walls  were  sacred  pictures,  one  of  the  infant 
Krishna  and  his  mother,  the  new-born  babe's  head  ha- 
loed with  light.  One  side  of  the  drawing-room  was  partly 
open,  and  from  the  room  beyond  we  presently  heard  a 
slight  jingling  of  silver  ornaments,  next  caught  flashes 
from  jewelled  hair,  and  the  dark  eyes  glancing  into  the 
room.  Five  Nautch  girls  entered  with  five  male  singers 
and  musicians.  The  girls  sat  in  a  row  on  the  floor  facing 
us,  and  the  men  behind  them  —  the  plain  white  dress  of 
the  latter  making  a  background  for  the  rich  costumes  of 
the  dancers.  These  Nautch  costumes,  though  glowing  with 
colour  and  laden  with  jewels,  were  not  gaudy  nor  even 
gorgeous ;  they  were  somewhat  barbaric,  but  had  an  an- 
tiquarian character  very  pleasing.  In  old  conventional 
pictures  of  sacred  women  —  Draupadi,  Damyanti,  Sita  — 
one  sees  similar  dresses,  with  the  exception  of  the  silken 


NAUTCH  DANCES  155 

trousers.  These  are  probably  the  addition  of  a  prudish 
age.  The  Sinhalese  Nautch  girls  are  dressed  with  deco- 
rum. They  are  small  of  stature,  several  of  them  pretty, 
and  the  pearls  and  gold  they  wear  —  always  excepting 
the  nose-gems  —  and  the  silver  anklets  above  their  bare 
feet  well  become  their  complexion.  Soon  after  they  had 
seated  themselves  on  the  floor,  all  —  men  and  women  — 
began  to  sing.  It  sounded  as  a  chant  with  grace-notes  at 
the  end  of  each  bar,  and  my  host,  who  sat  beside  me,  told 
me  it  was  a  hymn  to  Siva.  I  did  not  like  it  much  :  it  im- 
pressed my  ear  as  nasal,  not  to  say  whining,  and  monoto- 
nous. Then  followed  a  love-song,  and  for  a  few  moments 
it  sounded  like  the  same  tune  over  again ;  but  as  I  lis- 
tened more  closely,  and  tried  to  detach  the  accompani- 
ment of  tom-tom,  pipe,  and  viol,  I  perceived  that  there 
was  more  variety  and  more  science  in  this  music  than  my 
ear  could  easily  take  in.  For  the  first  time  it  occurred  to 
me  that  part  of  the  fault  I  found  in  oriental  music  might 
lie  in  my  ear  not  being  sufficiently  cosmopolitan.  But  at 
the  same  time  I  felt  sure  that  this  music  was  not  a  pro- 
duct of  art  in  the  European  sense  of  art ;  it  was  not  a 
thing  that  aimed  at  beauty  ;  it  had  ulterior  purposes  :  to 
move  the  compassion  of  a  god  or  lover  —  a  cry  wrung  out 
of  struggle.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  all  the  ancient 
love-songs  of  India  are  uttered  by  women  to  men.  My 
host,  whose  studies  of  such  subjects  have  been  extensive, 
told  me  that,  judging  by  the  ancient  songs,  the  love-mak- 
ing used  to  be  entirely  on  the  part  of  women. 

These  Nautch  girls  belong  to  the  Hindu  temple,  and 
they  sing  and  dance  only  these  very  ancient  themes, 
transmitting  them  to  their  children  with  extreme  literal- 
ness,  precisely  as  they  received  them.  The  great  piece 
of  the  evening  was  a  long  dramatic  love-song  of  great 


156  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

antiquity,  sung  by  all  the  performers,  male  and  female, 
accompanied  by  full  instrumentation,  and  danced  by  the 
leading  Nautch  girl,  who  alone  did  not  sing.  Her  ges- 
tures were  very  expressive,  and  I  was  at  times  reminded 
of  the  French  saying,  "  What  can't  be  said  can  be  sung, 
and  what  can't  be  sung  can  be  danced."  The  feet  had 
little  more  to  do  with  the  dance  than  to  bear  forward  and 
backward  the  swaying  or  undulating  form,  —  not  at  all 
the  danse  du  venire,  —  while  the  arms  were  ever  on  the 
move  and  the  fingers  twisted  themselves  into  many  varia- 
tions. None  of  these  hand-movements  were  the  same,  and 
each  meant  something.  The  opening  scene  pantomimed 
was  the  first  glimpse  of  the  beloved,  told  in  embarrass- 
ment, meditation,  and  then  the  flinging  up  of  the  arms  in 
appeal  to  the  god  of  Love.  Then  followed  the  first  coquet- 
tish attempt  to  fascinate  him  —  now  by  coyness,  next  by 
a  display  of  charms.  Then  follows  dismay  —  the  beloved 
makes  no  sign  of  requital.  The  maiden  becomes  melan- 
choly, weeps  ;  then  she  becomes  passionate  and  confesses 
to  him  her  love.  He  is  still  cold  and  she  is  jealous.  Find- 
ing he  loves  no  other,  she  asks  if  he  is  a  man  who  is  thus 
unmoved  by  woman's  love.  He  then  proposes  illicit  love ; 
this  she  refuses  with  an  indignation  that  turns  to  sorrow. 
Then  she  becomes  angry,  and  when  her  anger  melts,  the 
heart  of  her  beloved  also  melts.  Then  her  finale  of  joy 
is  danced.  Much  in  this  dance  was  touching,  much  was 
exciting,  and  it  was  all  of  absorbing  interest ;  when  the 
girl  sat  down  breathless,  it  for  the  first  time  occurred  to 
me  that  she  had  been  dancing  fifteen  minutes  without  an 
instant's  pause. 

I  might  have  enjoyed  this  dance  a  little  more  had  I 
not  had  to  act  passively  the  part  of  the  beloved  object. 
The  girl  approached  me,  clasped  her  hands  passionately 


THE   DRAMA  OF  HARISCHANDRA       157 

under  my  obdurate  eyes,  kneeled  to  me.  I  dared  not 
glance  at  the  English  ladies,  who  I  knew  were  smiling 
behind  their  fans,  and  foresaw  the  narrative  witty  Mrs. 
Thwaites  would  send  to  our  mutual  friends  in  London. 
In  an  interval  for  ices  and  sherbets  the  Nautches  came 
up  in  a  perfunctory  way  to  have  their  mystical  ornaments 
looked  at, — armlets,  bracelets,  etc.,  —  silent,  impassive, 
and  automatic  during  the  process. 

There  were  other  dances,  one  of  the  most  striking  being 
a  dance  to  the  words,  "  Mother,  a  scorpion  has  stung  me." 
These  words  are  endlessly  repeated  in  the  chant,  though 
in  varying  tones,  while  the  dancer  goes  through  all  the 
drama  of  pain,  illness,  parting,  faintness,  death.  This 
was  skilful,  and  so  were  all  the  dances.  Those  in  which 
all  the  Nautch  girls  danced  —  especially  one  in  which  they 
fenced  with  each  other — were  more,  beautiful;  but  the 
very  ancient  dances,  representing  love  and  death,  were  the 
most  interesting. 

After  the  dances  were  over  I  had  an  unexpected  de- 
light in  hearing  the  singing  of  the  closing  acts  of  the 
great  Tamil  drama  of  "  Harischandra."  I  first  made  the 
acquaintance  of  this  wonderful  Passion  Play  through  a 
translation  by  Sir  Kumara  Swamy.  Harischandra  is  "  the 
Martyr  of  Truth."  The  prologue  is  in  the  court  of  the 
supreme  deity,  Indra,  where  the  truthfulness  of  the  king 
is  by  one  declared  inflexible,  this  being  denied  by  another. 
The  result  is  a  wager.  Harischandra  is  subjected  to  the 
most  terrible  ordeals  in  order  to  induce  him  to  tell  a  lie. 
He  stands  by  his  word  at  cost  of  his  kingdom,  his  wife,  his 
child,  —  these  and  himself  becoming  slaves.  In  the  end 
all  their  persecutors  throw  off  disguise  and  are  shown  to 
be  gods,  and  everything  is  restored.  The  story  is  much 
like  that  of  Job  in  the  Puranic  version,  where  the  test  is 


158  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

not  of  Harischandra's  veracity,  but  of  his  fidelity  to  his 
promise  of  gold  for  a  sacrifice  to  the  gods  when  he  no 
longer  has  the  gold,  —  his  property  being  destroyed,  as 
in  the  case  of  Job.  This  gold  he  obtains  by  selling  him- 
self and  family  into  slavery.  The  popular  and  dramatic 
form  has  humanized  the  earlier  and  religious  motive  from 
which  Job  was  probably  derived.  My  friend  who  sat  by 
me  translated  in  a  low  voice  every  thought  as  it  was 
sung,  and  then  I  began  to  appreciate  something  of  the 
meaning  of  Hindu  music.  The  singer  was  a  man  over 
thirty,  with  a  fine  voice,  very  flexible ;  and  though  a 
slight  occasional  inclination  of  the  head  was  his  only  ges- 
ture, the  persons  of  the  drama  seemed  to  live  in  his  tones. 
There  is  one  part  of  the  drama  where  the  wife  of  Haris- 
chandra,  Sandramati,  finds  her  only  son  dead,  bitten  by 
a  serpent.  She  says  to  him,  "  Why  do  you  not  speak  to 
me  ?  What  have  I  done  that  you  do  not  reply  or  look  at 
me  ? "  One  could  hardly  refrain  from  tears  when  the 
man  sang  these  words.  And  again  when  Harischandra, 
ordered  to  be  the  executioner  of  his  wife  (charged  with 
child-murder),  says,  "  Sandramati,  my  wife,  lay  thy  head 
on  the  block,  thy  sweet  face  turned  to  the  east !  "  The 
voice  was  here  most  plaintive,  and  suddenly  rang  out  tri- 
umphantly when  the  sword  of  execution  becomes  a  neck- 
lace of  pearls  on  her  neck,  and  the  gods  pay  homage  to 
the  inflexible  "  Martyr  of  Truth." 

There  is  a  favourite  popular  picture  in  India  of  San- 
dramati bringing  to  her  husband  in  the  cemetery  their 
dead  son. 

During  this  last  dramatic  cantata  I  felt  the  sounds 
weaving  a  spell  around  me  such  as  I  had  a  vague  remem- 
brance of  having  once  before  felt.  On  my  way  home  it 
came  to  me :  the  secret  of  Wagner  lay  in  this  Hindu-Sin- 


HON.  P.   RAMANATHAN  159 

halese  music.  He  had  fitted  to  every  emotion  its  sound, 
its  moan,  its  cry,  its  fear  or  joy.  This  Sinhalese  "  music" 
(hardly  the  name  for  it)  was  not  meant  to  please  the  ear 
or  gratify  the  taste,  but  to  move  the  gods.  That  is  why 
it  had  given  me,  like  Wagner's  "  Lohengrin,"  a  sort  of 
hyperaesthetic  thrill.  I  never  heard  of  Wagner's  visiting 
any  oriental  countries,  but  I  learned  after  his  death, 
which  occurred  shortly  before  I  left  London,  that  he  had 
planned  an  opera  about  Buddha. 

The  Hon.  P.  Ramanathan,  to  whom  I  was  so  much 
indebted  at  Colombo,  has  since  (1906)  become  a  notable 
figure  in  the  religious  developments  of  the  East.  While 
engaged  in  his  duties  as  solicitor-general  he  was  visited 
by  a  New  York  gentleman  of  his  own  profession,  Mr. 
Myron  H.  Phelps,  who  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the 
western  pilgrims  seeking  more  light  in  the  East.  I  have 
just  had  an  interview  with  this  gentleman,  who  resided 
for  a  year  with  Ramanathan  and  learned  from  him,  not 
only  a  new  oriental  religion,  but  a  new  Christianity.  He 
loaned  me  two  substantial  volumes  —  one  on  the  first 
gospel,  the  other  on  the  fourth  —  written  down  by  Miss 
R.  L.  Harrison  from  the  lips  of  her  "teacher,"  whose 
name  is  given  as  "  Sei  Parananda."  As  Buddha's  kins- 
man and  first  apostle  was  "  Ananda,"  the  selection  of 
Parananda  as  a  pseudonym  seems  to  be  suggestive  of  the 
composite  root  out  of  which  Ramanathan  has  developed 
his  religion.  The  Indian  teacher  reconciles  Brahmanism, 
Buddhism,  and  Christianity  by  giving  them  all  a  new 
birth,  but  the  reconciliation  is  not  for  the  sake  of  any 
racial  benefit  or  for  progress  ;  it  is  merely  incidental  to 
the  great  end,  —  individual  self-renunciation,  atrophy  of 
the  senses  to  enlarge  the  soul,  and  absorption  of  the  soul 
in  deity.  The  old  religions  are  not  entirely  lost,  but 


160  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

folded  away  as  a  sheath  under  a  glowing  spiritual  flower 
in  which  their  essence  is  expressed. 

On  the  representations  of  Mr.  Phelps  his  Indian 
teacher  was  invited  to  visit  Harvard  University ;  and  an 
address  given  there  by  Ramanathan,  in  November,  1905, 
in  his  admirable  English,  may  fairly  be  regarded  as  a 
landmark  in  the  history  of  the  famous  college  founded 
by  Puritanism.  He  vigorously  assailed  the  notion  that 
developments  of  invention  and  machinery  imply  either 
progress  or  civilization.  The  only  "  progress  "  is  that  of 
individual  soul  into  harmony  with  "  God."  (But  which 
God,  O  friend !) 

Judge  Arunachalam  is  also  a  fine  writer,  and  has  sent 
me  an  essay  printed  in  Colombo  on  "Luminous  Sleep." 
It  is  an  extremely  interesting  comparison  of  the  mysti- 
cal statements  in  Plato  concerning  the  power  of  "pure 
abstraction,"  "absolute  knowledge,"  obtained  through 
sleep  of  the  senses,  beyond  dreams,  with  the  like  doc- 
trines in  India.  "  To  the  wise  men  of  the  East  these 
are  matters  quite  as  amenable  to  the  test  of  experience 
and  verifiable  by  it  as  the  facts  of  physical  science.  Ac- 
cordingly in  India  systematic  study  has  been  made  and 
sedulously  pursued  for  centuries,  and  the  methods  of  at- 
tainment, involving  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral 
discipline,  have  been  reduced  to  something  like  a  science, 
which  teachers,  carrying  on  the  ancient  traditions,  still 
teach,  not  for  gain  or  show,  but  from  pure  love,  to  pupils 
found  worthy  of  instruction."  The  judge  does  not  hint 
that  he  has  himself  ever  had  any  inner  experiences  of 
this  kind.  Such  visions  are  not  "  verifiable,"  because  soul- 
senses  cannot  be  trusted  like  bodily  senses,  and  cannot 
like  these  be  checked  by  scientific  apparatus.  In  any 
insane  asylum  we  may  find  persons  whose  minds  are  filled 


LOST  PERSONALITY  161 

with  delusions  while  in  their  bodies  every  nerve  is  fulfil- 
ling its  function,  a  thousand  valves  opening  and  closing 
with  precision. 

And  then  cui  bono?  Why  should  any  one  desire  to 
have  his  personality  swallowed  up  by  any  deity  ?  What 
happiness  is  in  these  abstractions  and  visions  ?  One 
lovely  Lady  Arunachalam  or  Lady  Kamanathan  moving 
about  her  garden  and  household  is  surely  worth  more 
than  all  the  fair  phantoms  of  wisdom  and  the  translunary 
beauties  without  blood  or  passion. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

Arabi  in  exile — Relations  between  Egyptians  and  English  in  Colombo 
—  Arabi's  Mohammedan  Christianity  —  Adam's  Peak  and  Ararat  — 
How  Arabi's  life  was  saved  —  The  English  defenders  of  Arabi  —  Arabi's 
situation  at  seventy  —  Conjurers  —  The  giant  turtle  of  Colombo  —  The 
heart  and  life  of  Buddhism  in  Ceylon. 

A  MILE  along  the  seashore,  behind  a  red-turbaned 
Tamil  and  a  Persian  pony,  then  two  miles  through 
slumbrous  villages  and  leafy  lanes,  brought  me  to  a  gateway 
marked  "  Bonair,"  the  villa  of  exiled  Arabi.  The  road 
wound  through  some  two  acres  of  thick  palms  to  the  pretty 
bungalow.  On  the  veranda  sat  four  or  five  gentlemen  of 
the  Egyptian  type,  and  I  knew  that  the  large  fine-looking 
man  who  arose  to  receive  me  was  Arabi,  though  I  had 
never  seen  his  portrait.  A  friend  had  prearranged  this 
meeting,  which  I  desired  mainly  because  he  was  the  most 
learned  representative  of  Islam  in  Egypt.  He  held  my 
hand  for  a  moment,  and  his  eye  seemed  to  ask,  "Friend 
or  foe  ? "  He  then  turned  to  a  young  man,  who  spoke 
English  and  introduced  us. 

Arabi  was  a  more  striking  figure  than  I  had  expected. 
The  only  immediate  sign  of  his  nationality  was  his  fez ; 
otherwise  he  was  dressed  in  pure  white  garments  of 
French  fashion,  everything  about  him  being  scrupulously 
neat.  He  was  under  fifty,  full  six  feet  tall,  and  of  ad- 
mirable proportions,  with  the  lightest  of  eastern  com- 
plexions, a  large  soft  eye,  clear-cut  features,  and  a  face 
so  smooth,  a  brow  so  furrowless,  that  one  could  hardly 
associate  him  with  any  great  struggle  or  tragedy.  He 
offered  me  cigarettes,  lit  one  himself,  and  through  the 


ACHMET  ARABI  THE   EGYPTIAN 

'  From  my  prison  in  Cairo,  in  the  <lay  of  my  trouble,  to  John  Atafdoiin/il,  the  friend  of 
the  oppressed,  correspondent  of  the  Daily  News  " 


ARABI  IN  EXILE  163 

interpreter  began  conversation  by  saying  that  he  had 
received  many  friendly  expressions  from  England,  which 
surprised  him.  I  told  him  I  had  repeatedly  heard  in- 
fluential Englishmen  express  friendly  feelings  towards 
him.  "  What  is  the  cause  ?  "  "  Because  the  English  love 
freedom,  and  numbers  believe  that  the  Egyptians  you 
led  were  under  oppression."  He  was  silent  a  moment, 
then  said,  "  There  are  millions  bound  under  one."  In 
further  conversation  he  said,  "  No,  I  do  not  feel  so  much 
mental  trouble  now.  I  have  not  been  away  from  Co- 
lombo, though  I  may  move  hereafter.  I  have  sat  in 
this  veranda  every  day.  The  house  is  pleasant;  I  am 
kindly  treated  by  the  English  ;  in  mind  I  am  not  troubled, 
because  I  have  perfect  faith  that  Egypt  will  be  free. 
The  world  will  find  it  necessary.  I  look  on  with  deep 
feeling,  but  with  no  fear  as  to  the  final  result."  In 
another  connection  he  said,  "  Well,  yes ;  the  idea  has 
sometimes  entered  my  mind  of  a  visit  to  England ;  but 
that  rests  with  another  will  than  mine."  He  several 
times  alluded  to  the  kindness  of  the  English  in  Co- 
lombo. No  unpleasant  incident  of  his  residence  there 
was  known  to  him,  but  an  English  lady  told  me  that  at 
a  ball  to  which  Arabi  and  his  companions  were  invited 
some  ladies  were  annoyed,  supposing  they  were  laughed 
at  while  dancing.  The  custom  of  dancing  is  one  to  which 
the  rigid  Moslem  mind  cannot  adapt  itself ;  and  while 
the  English  are  sometimes  shocked  by  eastern  nudity, 
Orientals  are  equally  shocked  by  the  deliberately  decollete 
dress. 

I  did  not  know  then  that  the  life  of  Arabi  had  been 
privately  pleaded  for  by  John  Bright,  but  found  much 
satisfaction  in  reminding  him  that  the  great  Commoner 
had  withdrawn  from  the  Gladstone  Cabinet  because  of  the 


164  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

bombardment  of  Alexandria.  The  grand  old  Quaker  was 
told  by  Gladstone  that  Arabi  was  a  bad  man  and  deserved 
the  fate  to  which  -he  had  led  so  many,  but  the  hope  of  get- 
ting the  great  popular  leader  back  into  his  Cabinet  was 
probably  a  potent  reinforcement  of  the  gallant  English 
band  that  induced  the  premier  to  commute  the  Egyp- 
tian's sentence  to  exile.1 

In  common  with  other  friends  of   Professor   Edward 

1  John  Macdonald,  then  representative  of  the  London  Daily  News  in 
Cairo,  wrote  the  letters  that  brought  the  English  conscience  and  sentiment 
to  shield  Arabi  from  fury  in  Cairo,  where  proud  Cherif  Pasha  was  threat- 
ening that  if  Arabi  was  not  executed  he  (Cherif)  would  leave  Egypt. 
Macdonald's  letters  brought  vividly  before  us  the  honest  and  heroic,  albeit 
fanatical,  prisoner,  whom  he  constantly  visited.  With  Macdonald  and 
his  wife  (biographer  of  Rousseau)  I  have  recently  (1906)  talked  over  the 
case  of  Arabi.  A  photograph  of  Arabi  in  prison  —  somewhat  dim  —  was 
given  by  him  to  Macdonald,  with  an  inscription  in  Arabic  which  may  be 
thus  translated  :  "  From  my  prison  in  Cairo  in  the  day  of  my  trouble  to 
John  Macdonald,  the  friend  of  the  oppressed,  correspondent  of  the  Daily 
News.  —  Achmet  Arabi  the  Egpytian." 

Arabi  always  added  "  the  Egyptian  "  to  his  signature. 

Wilfred  Blunt  spent  about  £5000  to  save  the  life  of  Arabi,  and  valuable 
aid  in  London  was  given  by  Henry  Labouchere,  M.  P.,  and  Jesse  Ceilings, 
M.  P.  Mr.  A.  W.  Broadley  was  very  active  in  the  whole  affair,  and  his 
book,  How  we  defended  Arabi,  tells  the  true  story. 

Arabi's  exile  in  Ceylon  ended  about  seven  years  after  my  visit,  but  it 
appears  that  his  enemies  have  contrived  to  give  him  a  worse  exile  in 
Cairo.  In  a  note  of  June  29,  1906,  Mr.  Broadley  writes  me  :  "  I  formed 
a  very  high  opinion  of  Arabi's  patriotic  conduct  and  absolute  disinterest- 
edness. We  have  corresponded  ever  since.  I  heard  from  him  only  a  few 
days  ago.  He  is  now  about  seventy  years  old  —  a  great  age  for  an  Egyp- 
tian —  and  is  very  miserable.  He  gets  £650  a  year,  and  that  sum  is  not 
sufficient  for  the  wants  of  his  abnormally  large  family,  —  for  Arabi  is 
married  and  has  seventeen  or  eighteen  children.  He  is  boycotted  by  all 
the  official  set  in  Cairo  and  is  still  deprived  of  all  civil  rights.  He  was 
much  happier  in  Ceylon." 

Brent'ano's  house  in  Cairo  sought  in  vain  to  find  for  me  a  portrait  of 
Arabi !  In  the  oubliette  of  this  brave  man  it  may  be  hoped  will  be  buried 
the  delusion  that  a  people  can  successfully  fight  any  devil  with  fire  —  his 
own  element. 


CONVERSATIONS  WITH  ARABI          165 

Palmer,  I  had  deplored  the  death  in  that  Egyptian  strug- 
gle of  the  finest  linguist  in  England.  But  amid  our  grief 
in  London  I  had  pointed  out  in  a  public  discourse  that 
his  execution  by  the  Bedouins  was  a  legitimate  act  of  war ; 
and  had  solemnly  arraigned  the  English  government  for 
utilizing  the  knowledge  of  eastern  languages  in  which 
young  Palmer  excelled  to  turn  him  into  a  spy  and  send 
him  off  with  money  to  bribe  the  soldiers  of  Arabi  and 
make  them  traitors  to  their  cause.  Alas,  that  a  bril- 
liant scholar  should  have  allowed  any  government  to  tear 
him  from  his  university  for  an  inglorious  mission.  But 
so  do  governments  cast  their  children  to  the  wolves  for 
the  sake  of  victory. 

I  was  told  that  some  had  heard  sobs  issuing  from  Ara- 
bi's  chamber  at  midnight.  Nor  did  I  feel  sure  the  story 
was  mere  gossip.  Proud  and  strong  in  faith  as  that  big 
Egyptian  felt  himself,  he  rarely  smiled,  and  there  was 
something  pathetic  in  his  remark,  "I  wait  to  see  what 
England  will  do." 

A  servant  entered  with  coffee,  and  I  was  glad  that  the 
trials  of  exile  did  not  include  the  necessity  of  drinking 
the  stuff  called  coffee  in  Ceylon.  The  coffee  was  Egyp- 
tian, and  was  served  in  tiny  cups  holding  each  about  two 
thimblefuls.  On  one  cup  was  inscribed,  in  English, 
"Think  of  me,"  and  on  another,  " From  a  Friend."  Anx- 
ious to  avoid  politics,  I  alluded  to  the  Moslem  tradition 
that  Ceylon  was  selected  as  the  place  of  Adam's  exile, 
its  beauty  being  some  compensation  for  the  loss  of  Para- 
dise, and  expressed  the  hope  that  he,  Arabi,  also  found 
in  its  charms  some  mitigation  of  exile.  I  saw  his  face 
brighten  ;  the  Wahabi  —  the  enthusiast  of  Cairo  Uni- 
versity —  was  revealed.  He  went  on  with  rapidity  to  de- 
scribe how,  divorced  from  his  wife,  Adam  had  come  to 


166  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Ceylon  (the  isthmus  is  still  called  Adam's  Bridge),  and 
how  at  length  he  travelled  away,  finding  the  charms  of 
Ceylon  nothing  compared  with  those  of  Eve.  Her  he 
found  at  Ararat,  —  which  signifies  "  great  woman."  She 
had  become  a  giant  huntress,  and  Adam  had  to  woo  her 
again  before  she  would  give  up  her  freedom.1  I  could  not 
gather  clearly  whether  he  shared  the  notion  that  the  huge 
oblong  mark  on  Adam's  Peak  is  Adam's  footprint.  He 
was  willing,  I  think,  to  surrender  that  footprint  to  Buddha. 
Knowing  that  Arabi  was  a  scholar,  I  had  hoped  that  he 
might  be  interested  in  the  Persian  poets,  —  Firdusi,  Hafiz, 
perhaps  even  Omar  Khayyam.  I  found,  however,  that  he 
knew  only  that  they  were  unorthodox.  He  was  a  Wahabi, 
a  Moslem  Puritan,  and  all  the  poetry  in  the  world  was 
worthless  beside  a  line  of  the  Koran.  "There  is  one 
God,"  he  said,  "the  creator  of  all  things,  —  of  moun- 
tains, sea,  earth,  sky!  Do  you  not  believe  in  a  God?" 
In  Arabi's  Wahabi  deity  I  did  not  believe,  the  Koranic 
Allah  being  to  my  mind  one  of  the  least  lovable  or  be- 
lievable images  in  the  pantheon  of  invisible  idols.  While 
our  interpreter  was  conveying  his  question  I  framed  some 
vague  statement  from  my  point  of  view,  which  I  fear 
mystified  him,  and  hastened  to  change  the  subject. 

The  most  curious  and  obstinate  error  in  Christendom 
is  the  notion  that  the  Moslems  are  not  Christians,  and 
that  Mohammed  occupies  the  place  of  Christ.  They  are 
not  only  Christians,  but  the  only  ones  in  the  East  who 
maintain  literally  all  of  the  miracles  ascribed  to  Christ  in 
the  gospels,  or  relating  to  his  birth.  It  is  very  rare  to 
find  among  them  a  sceptic. 

1  This  legend  that  Adam  and  Eve  had  quarrelled,  apparently  on  the  issue 
of  feminine  "  freedom,"  looks  as  if  in  some  regions  there  had  blended  with 
it  the  legend  of  Lilith,  Adam's  first  wife,  who  left  him  because  he  declared 
himself  her  divinely  authorized  master. 


CHRIST  AND  MOHAMMED  167 

In  my  talk  with  Arabi  we  spoke  of  the  Mahdi  (Mo- 
hammed Ahmed)  in  the  Soudan.  The  soldiers  of  Arabi 
had  been  dragged  to  fight  against  the  Mahdi,  but  Gordon 
had  not  yet  been  sent  to  bring  back  these  "  garrisons." 
Arabi  said  to  me :  "  There  is  an  expectation  generally 
prevailing  in  the  Moslem  world  that  the  Mahdi  is  to 
appear  about  this  time  and  lead  in  the  transformation 
of  the  world.  He  will  overthrow  the  powers  of  wrong  and 
all  idolatry ;  and  with  him  will  presently  appear  Jesus 
Christ,  who  will  rebuke  the  errors  of  those  who  claim  to 
be  the  only  Christians,  and  will  unite  all  in  the  worship 
of  one  God.  The  religion  so  formed  will  thenceforth  be 
that  of  the  whole  world."  I  asked  why  it  should  not  be 
Mohammed  himself  instead  of  Christ  who  would  appear 
with  the  Mahdi  and  unite  his  followers  with  those  of 
Christ.  He  said :  "  Mohammed  cannot  appear  again  on 
earth  ;  he  is  dead."  "  But  is  not  Christ  similarly  dead  ?  " 
"  No,  Christ  never  died.  There  are  two  men  who  never 
died,  —  Elias  and  Jesus.  He  who  hung  upon  the  cross 
was  a  mere  effigy  of  Jesus.  The  crucifiers  were  deceived. 
Jesus  still  lives,  and  at  the  right  hour  will  appear.  Elias 
found  the  water  of  immortality  in  a  cave  and  drank  of 
it :  he  cannot  die.  But  Mohammed  is  a  dead  man  —  he 
is  in  Paradise." 

Arabi's  voice  became  fervid  as  he  said  this,  and  his  eye 
expanded,  as  if  holding  the  vision  of  innumerable  millions 
turning  from  adoration  of  a  crucified  effigy  to  worship  of 
Allah. 

Arabi  expressed  a  lively  interest  in  America.  He  con- 
sidered the  late  civil  war,  "  which  ended  with  the  liber- 
ation of  four  million  slaves,"  the  ideal  event  of  the  century, 
and  added :  "  Alas,  there  are  still  so  many  slaves  !  There 
are,  as  I  said,  twelve  millions  bound  to  the  will  of  one 


168  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

man.  But  it  cannot  remain  so.  I  sit  here  on  this  ve- 
randa from  week  to  week  and  study  English  every  day. 
That  is  my  main  occupation.  What  will  the  English  do 
in  Egypt  ?  "  This  last  question  was  not  uttered  exactly  to 
me ;  it  was  a  problem  slowly  put  to  the  horizon  toward 
which  his  eyes  were  directed.  I  then  arose  to  go.  Again 
his  form  towered  before  me  with  its  grand  proportions. 
There  was  the  utmost  polish  and  gracefulness  in  the  way 
in  which  he  parted  from  me.  He  invited  me  to  call  again, 
but  I  could  not  do  so.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  fascina- 
tion about  the  man,  and  I  did  not  wonder  at  his  influence 
over  his  countrymen.  I  left  him  with  the  conviction  that 
he  was  a  very  able  man  indeed  —  a  genuine  patriot  —  the 
true  representative  of  a  people,  but  also  with  a  dawning 
suspicion  that  religious  enthusiasm,  not  to  say  fanaticism, 
had  more  to  do  with  his  agitation  in  Egypt  than  most  of 
his  English  sympathizers  supposed. 

Just  as  I  was  bidding  farewell  to  Arabi  and  his  com- 
rades a  man  and  boy  emerged  from  the  woods,  —  for  there 
was  no  habitation  near  Bonair,  —  the  man  bearing  a 
sort  of  rattle  with  which  he  accompanied  his  song,  the 
boy  a  bowl.  None  of  us  present  understood  the  song,  but 
the  theme  was  sweet.  They  were  well  dressed,  and  the 
boy,  a  yellow-tinted  Eros,  did  not  extend  his  bowl  for 
money.  They  made  obeisance  and  passed  on.  Arabi  re- 
garded the  visit  as  one  of  respect  and  sympathy,  and  was 
evidently  moved.  His  face  flushed  with  sensibility,  and 
he  touched  the  beautiful  long  hair  of  the  boy  with  a  little 
caress. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  of  the  English  rulers  in 
Egypt,  or  of  the  English  generals  there,  was  a  grander 
man  than  Arabi. 

What  most  impressed  me  about  Arabi  was,  I  think,  his 


CONJURERS  169 

veracity.  It  was  inconceivable  that  this  transparent 
man  was  strategist  enough  to  be  a  successful  minister  of 
war.  Indeed  candour  appeared  to  me  characteristic  of  all 
the  Mohammedans  I  met  on  my  travels.  A  Christian 
African  envoy  from  Liberia  to  a  European  court  told  me 
of  a  poor  negro  who  was  puzzled  as  to  the  right  religion, 
and  an  English  agent  said  to  him,  "  If  you  want  to  be 
a  good  man  you  had  better  be  in  this  neighbourhood  a 
Mohammedan ;  if  you  want  to  make  money,  be  a  Chris- 
tian." 

While  wandering  about  the  streets  in  Colombo  I  en- 
countered a  Sinhalese  boy  of  about  sixteen  years  who 
entreated  me  to  witness  his  conjuring  tricks.  He  cheated 
my  senses  cleverly,  but  interested  me  most  with  his  cobra. 
He  took  from  a  basket  the  large  hooded  reptile  which 
reared  half  its  body  from  the  ground  and  when  he  piped 
to  it  swayed  in  good  time  from  side  to  side.  He  pressed 
the  rupee  I  loaned  into  the  cobra's  mouth  several  times, 
each  time  exclaiming  "  Poison ! "  then  offered  it  back  to 
me  and  was  saddened  by  my  accepting  it.  However,  I 
returned  it.  I  came  to  Ceylon  expecting  to  be  waylaid 
by  cobras,  but  at  length  was  willing  to  pay  an  extra  rupee 
to  see  even  a  performing  one. 

Later  I  saw  another  conjurer  performing  the  renowned 
trick  of  making  a  mango  grow  from  the  ground.  It  did 
not  impress  me  much ;  but  simply  because  of  the  stories 
told  about  it  by  travellers,  I  beckoned  this  conjurer 
into  a  lonely  place  and  offered  him  five  rupees  to  tell  me 
his  secret.  He  then  opened  his  property -bag  and  showed 
me  three  slips  of  the  mango  plant,  the  largest  having 
one  little  mango  on  it.  The  smallest  is  put  into  a  mus- 
sel shell ;  but  the  stem,  bent  under  compression,  will, 
when  the  lid  is  removed,  stand  erect.  In  planting  succes- 


170  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

sively  the  other  and  larger  two,  the  dexterity  required 
is  assisted  by  the  "priest,"  a  confederate,  also  by  the 
frequent  lifting  of  the  horse  blanket  for  the  performers 
before  the  public  is  allowed  to  see  the  growth.  The 
trick  is  rendered  easy  by  the  length  of  time  required, 
during  which  the  spectators  are  apt  to  move  about  and 
look  at  other  curious  things,  returning  only  when  the 
final  miracle  is  announced.  It  is  not  the  mango  that  is 
so  wonderful,  but  the  growth  of  the  narrative  about  it 
between  Bombay  and  London. 

There  was,  however,  no  deception  about  the  great  Ceylon 
turtle.  It  is  about  six  feet  long  by  four  or  five  wide.  It  is 
quite  blind,  never  drawing  in  its  head  at  the  approach  of  a 
stick.  When  thirsty  it  bellows  like  a  bull.  In  the  back  of 
the  thick  shell  a  hole  of  three  inches  diameter  has  been 
bored  so  that  the  turtle  may  be  spurred  with  a  stick  into 
motion.  According  to  the  tradition  it  was  over  a  hundred 
years  old,  but  that  is  a  moderate  estimate.  I  visited  an 
old  man  of  ninety  who  told  me  that  the  turtle  was 
nearly  of  the  same  size  in  his  boyhood.  It  occupies  a  field 
of  several  acres  alone,  and  nothing  is  charged  for  see- 
ing it ;  but  a  keeper  goes  over  to  carry  it  water  when  it 
roars. 

I  shall  always  think  of  Ceylon  as  an  Eden,  and  of  the 
Sinhalese  as  happy  children  who  have  not  yet  eaten  of 
that  tree  which  Pessimism  calls  Consciousness.  In  the 
Padma  Purana  beautiful  Parvati  asks  the  god  Siva  to 
show  her  the  finest  garden  in  the  earth ;  he  conveys  her 
to  Naudana.  In  the  garden's  centre  there  is  a  wondrous 
tree,  the  Kalpa-tree,  which  "bestows  all  that  gods  de- 
sire." Its  seeds  are  gems.  Parvati  longs  for  the  "beauti- 
ful gem  of  a  maiden,"  so  Asokasundari  was  born.  But 
this  tree  ?  Kalpa  means  Time,  or  an  immeasurable  era : 


THE  KALPA-TREE  171 

does  the  Puranic  fable  mean  that  Time  brings  about  all 
that  the  gods  desire  ?  It  does  not  always  bring  about  what 
man  desires,  and  I  do  not  suppose  the  famous  founders 
and  priesthoods  of  any  temples  would  be  satisfied  with  the 
shape  Time  has  given  their  gods  in  Ceylon,  which  re- 
ceived them  all  with  the  large  tolerance  with  which  Roger 
Williams  welcomed  in  Rhode  Island  the  heretics  exiled 
from  other  regions.  Modliar  quotes  a  Sinhalese  as  saying 
to  a  European  sceptic :  "  I  don't  know  whether  these 
things  be  true  or  false.  When  we  fall  sick  we  try  every 
means  within  our  reach  of  getting  better.  We  worship 
Buddha,  the  gods,  and  the  demons,  all  at  once,  to  take  our 
chance  of  recovering  from  the  sickness  through  the  help 
of  some  of  them.  All  my  countrymen  do  so,  and  I  am  only 
doing  like  them."  It  does  not  seem  to  have  occurred  to 
the  lowly  man  that  any  one  of  these  potent  beings  might 
be  a  "  jealous  god "  and  object  to  being  mixed  up  with 
other  deities.  The  philosophy  derived  from  Buddha  is 
pure  pessimism,  and  Ceylon  is  its  academic  centre ;  but 
the  Kalpa-tree,  Time,  in  that  garden  has  produced  a 
people  practically  optimist.  The  seeds  of  that  tree  are 
gems,  and  each  has  the  priceless  gem  —  contentment  — 
which  keeps  the  heart  young  to  its  last  beat. 

The  Kalpa-tree  in  oriental  folk-lore  probably  originated 
"La  Peau  de  Chagrin."  Balzac's  centenarian  says,  "The 
Brahman  to  whom  I  owe  this  talisman  explained  that 
it  would  effect  a  mysterious  accord  between  the  desires 
and  the  destinies  of  its  possessor."  But  it  required  Euro- 
pean sophistication  to  connect  with  the  Wish-talisman 
the  moral  that  every  fulfilled  desire  is  another  step  in  sui- 
cide. Whatever  may  be  the  natural  penalties  of  violent 
western  passions,  there  are  none  for  the  simple  affections 
of  these  Sinhalese  vegetarians,  with  their  chaste  nudity, 


172  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

the  womanliness  even  of  the  men,  whose  long  hair  is  coiled 
with  combs.  I  counted  twenty-nine  various  vegetables  in 
one  market-stall,  and  wondered  whether  these  various 
contributions  of  Armaiti,  genius  of  the  Earth,  had  any 
connection  with  the  varieties  of  expression,  voice,  fancies 
of  the  Sinhalese,  and  their  freedom  from  friction.  They 
spoke  and  moved  —  women,  children,  men  —  sponta- 
neously, as  if  never  used  to  being  sat  upon. 

Buddha  said  of  Truth  that  it  was  as  the  rain  which  each 
plant,  flower,  grass-blade  sucked  up  in  accordance  with  its 
nature  and  its  need.  What  matters  any  dogma,  theology, 
philosophy,  uttered  thousands  of  years  ago,  compared 
with  the  life  that  is  quickening  hearts  to-day?  Each 
great  Bo-tree  (Ficus  religiosa)  beside  its  temple  is  a 
Kalpa,  giving  each  several  heart  its  sustenance ;  and  I 
am  leaving  Ceylon  with  a  serene  confidence  that  if  Allah 
or  Jesus  are  ever  welcomed  there  it  will  be  because  they 
will  be  seen  sitting  beside  Buddha  under  his  fig-tree,  as 
Vishnu  and  Agni  have  long  been  sitting,  and  like  these 
conveying  to  native  hearts  sweet  secrets  of  private  inter- 
pretation. The  Buddhist  Kalpa  will,  I  believe,  continue 
its  gifts  after  the  Trees  rooted  in  deities  and  dogmas  have 
withered.  For  in  the  course  of  ages  the  accumulated  sen- 
timents projected  into  and  nursed  by  every  religion  bring 
human  hearts  in  fatal  conflict  with  any  falsities  in  their 
foundation.  George  Sand,  in  her  "  Pauline,"  says :  — 

She  [Pauline]  was  not  really  pious.  .  .  .  She  found 
in  Catholicism  the  nuance  adapted  to  her  character,  for 
all  the  shades  (nuances)  possible  are  found  in  the  old 
religions;  so  many  centuries  have  modified  them,  so 
many  men  have  had  a  hand  in  the  building,  so  many 
intelligences,  passions,  and  virtues  have  borne  to  it  their 
treasures,  their  errors,  or  their  lights,-  that  a  thousand 
doctrines  are  ultimately  stored  in  one,  and  a  thousand 


THE   OLD   RELIGIONS  173 

different  natures  are  able  to  draw  thence  the  palliation 
or  the  stimulant  suited  to  them.  It  is  by  that  these 
religions  are  built  up,  and  also  by  that  they  crumble. 

(George  Sand  wrote  these  words  in  1840,  and  while  I 
quote  them  (1906)  the  world  is  witnessing  the  fulfilment 
in  France  of  her  last  clause  —  "  c'est  aussi  par  la  qu'elles 
s'ecroulent.") 


CHAPTER  IX 

Madras  —  Temple  dancers  —  Talk  with  students  —  Jnggenauth  —  St. 
Thome*  •=—  A  Portuguese  Thomas  —  Legend  of  Savatri  —  New  dis- 
coveries concerning  Thomas  —  Pain  and  piety  —  A  Jain  parable  — 
Good  will  to  man  —  A  Buddhist  carol . 

IT  is  the  custom  on  P.  and  O.  boats  for  the  steward  to 
awaken  one  at  dawn  with  an  offer  of  coffee.  I  began 
by  storming  against  this  dream-murder,  and  ended  with 
ordering  my  coffee  still  earlier.  Every  oriental  dawn  is  a 
pictorial  rapture  out  of  the  Vedas.  Especially  resplendent 
was  the  sunrise  under  which  we  approached  India.  A 
great  sun  arose  out  of  the  sea,  stretched  himself,  then 
sprang  aloft  and  hurled  darts  on  Ahi,  serpent  of  darkness, 
revealing  Madras  in  the  distance.  The  colours  of  dawn 
descend  to  earth,  breaking  over  an  ocean  that  knows  no 
twilight,  transmuting  every  wave  to  opal,  tinting  each 
towering  temple. 

Carried  ashore  in  a  boat  of  bamboo  tied  with  strings 
of  palm  bark,  no  nail  in  it,  I  entered  on  the  grand  estate 
of  two  days  in  Madras.  Not  a  wavelet  of  daylight  or 
moonshine  to  be  lost !  Straight  I  went  rambling  in  the 
streets,  and  to  my  joy  found  that  a  lunar  festival  was  just 
beginning.  In  front  of  an  ancient  temple  a  procession 
was  forming,  and  a  goddess  brought  out  to  her  palanquin. 
It  was  Sira,  a  sister  goddess  (of  Prosperity)  with  Lakshmi. 
She  sat  in  a  round  red-and-gold  frame,  surrounded  with 
tongues  of  flame  representing  rays  of  the  sun.  The  great 
disc  rested  on  a  chariot  driven  by  some  Hindu  Phaethon, 
and  drawn  by  five  metal  horses  painted  green  and  red. 

I  was  the  only  white  person  present ;  and  as  the  man- 


TEMPLE   DANCERS  175 

agers  of  the  affair  were  polite,  making  an  opening  through 
the  crowd  that  I  might  see  the  dancers,  I  followed  them 
an  hour.  Whenever  a  temple  or  shrine  was  passed  the 
five  Nautches  danced  before  their  goddess.  The  march 
of  the  procession  was  to  the  beating  of  tom-toms  and  music 
of  pipes ;  but  now  and  then  a  leading  personage  made  a 
tinkling  sound  on  a  metal  cup  he  held,  whereupon  the 
procession  paused,  the  palanquin  was  let  down  from  its 
bearers'  shoulders,  all  other  instruments  ceased,  and  to 
the  tinkle  of  the  bell  and  chant  of  him  who  beat  it  the 
Nautches  danced.  They  were  covered  with  jewels  and 
richly  dressed.  The  embroidered  cape  fell  loosely  over 
the  upper  part  of  the  breasts,  leaving  the  waist  naked ; 
the  skirt  descended  just  below  the  knees,  the  legs  being 
bare  except  for  anklets.  The  dancers  were  of  lighter  com- 
plexion than  others  in  the  procession  ;  they  wore  less  cloth- 
ing than  the  temple-nautches  of  Ceylon ;  but  they  were 
so  childlike,  and  so  absorbed  in  their  divine  pantomime 
that  there  was  no  effect  of  indecency.  Their  feet  moved 
slowly  to  and  fro  ;  their  jewelled  hands  were  contin- 
ually moving,  —  the  fingers,  sometimes  crossed,  now  and 
then  stretched  out,  or  lifted  as  if  in  benediction,  were 
yet  never  raised  heavenward.  They  were  rehearsing  the 
deeds  of  Sira. 

The  next  morning  I  went  out  at  seven  o'clock  to  the 
same  temple.  The  deity  brought  out  on  this  occasion  was 
the  elephant-headed  Ganesa,  god  of  wisdom.  He  was 
mounted  on  the  same  sun-chariot,  drawn  by  the  five  mod- 
elled horses,  whose  attitudes  were  much  like  those  of  St. 
Mark's  at  Venice.  Two  poles  upheld  large  red  hearts 
with  sun  and  moon  (featured)  embroidered  on  them.  On 
this  occasion  three  of  the  five  Nautches  were  girls  of  about 
ten  years.  The  little  things  watched  their  leader  and 


176  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

imitated  her  every  movement.  The  dance,  interesting  as 
a  novelty  and  study,  seemed  perfunctory ;  there  was  no 
appearance  of  any  emotion,  much  less  passion  or  ecstasy, 
about  dancers  or  dance.  When  the  dancers  and  the  deity 
first  emerged  from  the  temple  beneath  an  arch  of  palm 
branches,  they  were  preceded  by  a  very  fair  woman  who 
bore  in  her  hand  a  brass  pot,  on  the  top  of  which  burned 
a  flame.  When  the  procession  had  started  she  moved  back 
into  the  temple  and  was  seen  no  more. 

While  I  was  standing  near  the  palanquin  a  young 
Hindu  approached  me.  "  You  seem,  sir,"  he  said  in  per- 
fect English,  "  to  be  cosmopolitan."  I  turned  at  the  quaint 
remark  and  saw  before  me  a  refined,  eager  young  face, 
a  bright,  penetrating  eye,  a  frank,  pleasant  smile.  On 
his  forehead  was  the  round  spot  of  Siva.  He  was  dressed 
in  a  snow-white  robe  from  neck  to  feet.  This  youth,  as 
it  afterwards  appeared,  had  been  standing,  with  a  few 
fellow-students  of  Madras  University,  on  the  roof  of  their 
house ;  they  had  observed  my  interest  in  the  ceremonies 
and  the  deity  to  whom  they  were  offered,  and  resolved  to 
invite  me  to  their  rooms.  When  accosted,  I  said  that  I 
was  indeed  much  interested  in  oriental  religions.  "  I  shall 
be  very  glad  to  be  of  any  assistance  to  you,"  said  my  new 
friend,  "  and  so  will  my  companions  whom  you  may  see 
standing  on  that  house."  I  looked  and  saw  three  white- 
robed  youths  some  fifty  yards  away,  gazing  steadily  at  us. 
"  We  are  students  of  the  university ;  we  speak  a  little 
English,  and  would  be  glad  of  some  conversation  with 
you."  I  would  have  followed  a  youth  with  such  a  counte- 
nance anywhere.  "  I  will  come  presently,"  I  said,  and  he 
left  me.  Having  made  a  few  more  notes  of  the  Ganesa 
service,  I  repaired  to  the  house  of  the  students.  Three, 
apparently  brothers,  welcomed  me  at  the  door.  The  rooms 


TALK  WITH  STUDENTS  177 

of  these  well-to-do  students  were  comfortable  and  venti- 
lated, but  bare  of  ornament.  They  sat  on  benches,  but 
brought  a  chair  for  me.  I  found  them  deeply  interested  in 
English  science  and  in  their  own  sacred  literature. 

Strange  combination  had  their  generation  provided  for 
these  young  heads.  I  was  told  of  a  Burmese  student  at  Cal- 
cutta whose  father  secured  him  against  Christian  heresies 
by  means  of  a  praying  machine  perpetually  turned  by  a 
stream  of  water,  but  I  was  curious  to  know  how  these 
young  Hindus  were  protected.  I  found  that  they  studied 
and  respected  everything  English  except  its  theology.  All 
the  theology  of  Christendom  was  as  a  mushroom  beside 
the  stately  forest  of  their  own  sacred  books  and  tradi- 
tions. They  were  just  then  engaged  on  the  Ramayana 
and  Bhagavat  Purana.  The  latter,  which  gives  the  fullest 
account  of  Krishna,  led  to  a  conversation  on  the  resem- 
blances between  that  legend  of  the  incarnation  of  Vishnu 
and  that  of  Christ  in  the  New  Testament.  One  of  these 
youths  called  my  attention  to  a  point  which  has  not,  I 
believe,  been  noted  by  western  scholars.  The  next  in- 
carnation expected  by  the  Hindus  is  Kalki.  This  name 
has  usually  been  translated  "white  horse"  and  understood 
to  mean  that  at  the  end  of  the  Kalki,  or  Iron  Age,  Vishnu 
will  come  on  a  pure  white  horse  to  judge  the  world.  But 
these  students  say  Kalki  means  "the  severe  face,"  the 
idea  conveyed  being  very  nearly  that  ascribed  by  Chris- 
tians to  the  Messiah  at  his  second  coming.  It  is  believed 
that  Kalki  will  appear  beside  the  river  Ehambrapurny, 
south  of  Tinnivelly.  These  students  spoke  of  Buddha  as 
a  very  great  Rishi  and  sage  who  founded  a  new  school  of 
philosophy  —  the  Sankhya.  Theosophy  having  come  under 
discussion,  they  were  surprised  to  hear  me  speak  of  it  as 
claiming  to  be  "  Buddhist."  They  had  seen  the  "  Countess  " 


178  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

Blavatsky  and  "  Colonel "  Olcott,  had  attended  Theosophist 
meetings  and  lectures,  and  had  always  supposed  it  to  be 
a  revival  of  Hinduism.  They  had  never  heard  of  the 
veiled  Mahatma,  Khotume.  The  Theosophists  must  have 
been  adapting  their  cult  to  different  regions.  They  be- 
lieved "  Colonel "  Olcott  had  been  successful  in  healing 
some  diseases.  They  had  not  personally  witnessed  such 
cures,  but  heard  that  at  Combaconum,  where  their  parents 
resided,  he  had  cured  a  boy  of  paralysis  of  the  leg  and  arm. 
The  students  appeared  to  me  unfamiliar  with  the  ideas 
of  scientific  men  concerning  such  subjects,  or  with  the 
pathology  of  imagination.  They  seemed  to  think  all  such 
things  immediately  connected  with  preternatural  or  oc- 
cult causes.  Otherwise  they  were  keeping  well  abreast  of 
European  ideas.  The  most  significant  thing  about  their 
talk  was  the  evidence  given  that  they  were  alive  to  the 
resemblances  between  Christian  and  oriental  traditions. 
Besides  the  example  already  referred  to,  they  remembered 
the  Hindu  saints  and  heroes  born  of  miraculous  concep- 
tion ;  and  among  the  legends  common  to  India  and  Eu- 
rope they  mentioned  the  name  of  one  (Awasthama)  doomed 
to  immortality  on  earth  like  the  Wandering  Jew,  while 
another  (Vabishana),  a  blessed  undying  one,  might  be 
compared  with  sleeping  St.  John  at  Ephesus.  They  say 
that  the  heaven  for  which  they  hope  is  not  very  different 
from  that  of  the  Christian  ("  We  shall  be  fair  there," 
they  said)  ;  but  they  looked  with  horror  upon  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  hell.  They  claimed  moral  and  philo- 
sophical superiority  for  their  belief  that  sinful  souls  are 
given  the  forms  of  animals  —  higher  or  lower,  according 
to  their  merits  and  disciplinary  needs  —  the  object  being 
not  at  all  punishment,  but  the  deliverance  of  a  soul  from 
evil  and  its  ascent  to  unity  with  God.  All  lower  forms 


JUGGENAUTH  179 

are  therefore  purgatorial,  and  every  soul  that  sins  is 
accorded  this  seventy  times  seven  if  he  shall  so  often  die 
in  his  sin.  "  There  is  no  eternal  punishment."  To  my  en- 
quiry whether  a  soul  sank  lower  by  immorality  or  by  athe- 
ism, they  answered,  "  By  atheism."  I  said  that  European 
opinion  was  different ;  that  every  thinker  who  renounced 
a  popular  idol  was  an  atheist  to  the  worshipper  of  that 
idol,  and  that  if  people  were  to  be  frightened  by  such  epi- 
thets there  could  never  be  any  advance  from  ancient  error 
to  new  truth.  "  Why  then,"  said  one,  "  was  the  editor 
of  the  '  Freethinker '  imprisoned  in  London  ? "  I  ex- 
plained that  it  was  not  because  of  atheism ;  that  the  judge 
in  that  case  declared  that  every  man  was  entitled  to  ex- 
press disbelief  in  deity ;  but  that  the  exhibition  of  certain 
pictorial  caricatures  of  sacred  persons  had  been  consid- 
ered contrary  to  public  decency.  The  caricatures  were 
not  obscene,  and  many  of  us  considered  the  conviction 
illegal,  although  disliking  such  caricatures.  This  expla- 
nation appeared  to  interest  them  very  much.  After  this 
conversation  the  student  who  had  accosted  me  on  the 
street  accompanied  me  to  the  museum,  where  I  was  much 
assisted  by  his  intelligence.  He  had  an  ardent  desire  to 
visit  England,  and  told  me  that  no  Hindu  now  lost  caste 
by  such  a  journey,  as  in  former  times.  On  his  return 
such  Hindu  traveller  need  only  call  at  the  shrine  of  Jug- 
genauth  and  bring  home  a  certificate  of  having  made  a 
"pilgrimage  to  Juggenauth,"  to  have  "no  questions 
asked "  as  to  how  much  farther  his  pilgrimage  may  have 
extended. 

I  found  learned  men  in  India,  both  native  and  English, 
puzzled  by  the  evil  reputation  of  Juggenauth  and  his 
famous  Car,  throughout  Christendom.  He  is  a  form  of 
Vishnu,  the  Lord  of  Life,  to  whom  all  destruction  is 


180  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

•  abhorrent.  The  death  of  the  smallest  creature  beneath  the 
wheels  of  that  Car,  much  more  of  a  human  being,  would 
entail  long  and  costly  ceremonies  of  purification.  It  is 
surmised  that  the  obstinate  and  proverbial  fiction  about 
the  Car  of  Juggenauth  must  have  originated  in  some 
accident  witnessed  by  a  missionary  who  supposed  it  a  reg- 
ular part  of  the  ceremonies.  There  have  been  suicides  in 
India,  as  in  Christian  countries,  from  religious  mania, 
but  the  place  where  they  are  least  likely  to  occur  is  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Juggenauth. 

In  1876  I  gave  a  discourse  in  London  in  which  this 
subject  was  alluded  to,  a  newpaper  report  of  which  led 
Professor  A.  Bain  of  Aberdeen  to  address  a  letter  to 
the  "Academy"  citing  high  authorities  in  England  for 
the  traditional  belief  about  Juggenauth.  I  was  able  to 
fortify  my  statement,  and  Professor  Bain  wrote  me  a 
private  letter  saying  that  he  was  convinced  that  it  was 
correct.  Even  Professor  Max  Miiller  told  me  that  until 
he  read  the  letters  in  the  "  Academy  "  he  supposed  that 
suicides  had  formerly  occurred  under  the  Car. 

The  late  Sir  William  Hunter,  gazetteer-general  of 
India,  made  a  special  investigation  into  the  matter,  and 
in  his  "  Orissa  "  (1872)  said  :  "  So  far  from  encouraging 
self-immolation,  the  gentle  doctrines  of  Juggenauth  tended 
to  check  the  once  universal  custom  of  widow-burning. 
Even  before  the  government  put  a  stop  to  it,  our  officials 
observed  its  comparative  infrequency  at  Puri." 

When  the  Prince  of  Wales  (Edward  VII)  visited  St. 
Paul's  after  his  recovery,  several  persons  were  crushed  to 
death.  One  can  imagine  this  fact  reaching  some  distant 
island  in  such  a  shape  as  to  leave  there  a  tradition  that 
it  is  usual  to  sacrifice  human  victims  in  England  on  the 
recovery  of  a  prince,  as  a  part  of  a  thanksgiving  service. 


PROCESSION  AT  TRIPELCANE          181 

Especially  might  this  be  the  case  if  the  sentence  were  re- 
ported and  interpreted  by  priests  anxious  to  place  Chris- 
tianity in  its  worst  light.  If  we  were  to  smile  at  such  a 
notion  we  should  only  be  doing  what  every  educated 
Hindu  probably  does,  so  often  as  he  finds  Englishmen 
believing  that  human  sacrifices  were  part  of  the  normal 
worship  of  Juggenauth,  Lord  of  Life. 

It  is  a  notable  example  of  the  irony  of  mythology  that 
this  same  calumniated  Juggenauth  should  for  many  years 
have  been  the  deity  under  whose  protection  Buddha  has 
been  steadily  returning  into  India.  Wherever  we  see  an 
image  of  Juggenauth  —  whose  noble  countenance  is  pic- 
tured in  Christian  imagination  as  ferocious  —  there  is 
nearly  always  beside  him  an  image  of  Buddha.  When 
we  remember  that  this  deity  is  not  only  the  source  of 
that  catholicity  which  is  renewing  Buddhism  in  India, 
but  also  of  the  liberty  that  enables  Indians  of  rank  to 
travel  abroad  without  losing  caste,  there  is  brought  before 
us  one  more  lesson  in  the  untrustworthiness  of  the  mis- 
sionary reports  on  which  popular  notions  of  distant  coun- 
tries are  founded. 

At  Tripelcane  stands  the  only  grand  temple  near  Ma- 
dras. There  I  had  the  luck  to  arrive  just  as  the  goddess 
of  good  luck  —  Lakshmi  —  was  promenading.  The  god- 
dess was  enthroned  in  her  palanquin  amid  gems  under  a 
many-coloured  solar  arch,  and  borne  on  the  shoulders  of 
moving  bronze  statues,  recognizable,  as  they  came  closer, 
as  men.  The  tableau  was  very  pretty  when  they  came 
from  their  circuits  in  front  of  the  temple  again.  These 
temples,  which  of  course  none  but  Hindus  are  permitted 
to  enter,  have  lofty  truncated  pyramidal  portals,  which, 
with  the  columned  portico,  are  the  only  things  notable. 
This  portal-tower  at  Tripelcane  is  carved  all  over  with 


182  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

figures  in  deep  relief,  not  an  inch  being  without  its  fin- 
ished sculpture.  All  the  popular  deities  may  be  picked 
out.  Beneath  the  pillared  portico  several  score  of  women 
and  children  are  sheltered  from  the  glowing  sun,  now  and 
then  purchasing  something  from  the  stalls,  loaded  with 
oranges,  bananas,  and  other  fruits.  So  soon  as  I  began 
to  examine  closely  the  figures  sculptured  on  the  pediments 
I  was  surrounded  by  a  swarm  of  small  naked  forms,  which 
displayed  quite  as  much  curiosity  as  would  be  excited  by 
a  Hindu  inspecting  Westminster  Abbey.  In  front  of  the 
large  temple  there  is  a  sort  of  palm-thatched  chapel-of-ease, 
in  which  Lakshmi  was  placed  with  due  ceremony  on  her 
return.  Beside  it  is  the  car  —  for  every  temple  keeps  a 
sort  of  Lord  Mayor's  coach  —  and  in  front  the  square 
tank,  covering  over  an  acre,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  a 
small  sculptured  edifice,  apparently  ornamental.  One  of 
the  profane  must  not  approach  this  tank  near  enough  to 
pollute  it  by  a  touch,  and  thereby  no  doubt  render  a  hun- 
dred elaborate  ceremonies  necessary  to  purify  it!  When 
the  goddess  had  been  carried  within,  the  chanting  ended, 
the  veil  drawn,  I  strolled  away  about  fifty  yards,  and  pre- 
sently heard  loud  calls.  Turning  I  saw  the  huge  elephant 
which  had  attended  the  procession  making  straight  for  me, 
brandishing  his  huge  trunk,  while  the  Hindu  on  his  back 
was  uttering  various  cries,  pointing  to  me  and  then  to  the 
swiftly  advancing  animal.  I  was  just  considering  whether 
a  sudden  bath  in  the  holy  tank  might  not  be  the  better 
part  of  valour,  when  the  driver  of  my  gharrie  ran  up  and 
said,  "  The  elephant  wants  some  money."  Ah  !  I  have  not 
often  found  relief  from  an  application  for  "  baksheesh." 
I  waited  until  this  elephantine  devotee  of  the  goddess  of 
Wealth  approached,  and  placed  a  bit  of  silver  in  his  pro- 
boscis. He  raised  it  over  his  head  to  the  hand  of  his  driver, 


ST.  THOME  183 

then  moved  off  to  his  neat  enclosure,  where,  kneeling  for 
his  driver  to  alight,  he  presently  stretched  himself  with 
a  stentorian  yawn  to  enjoy  his  dolce  far  niente  till  next 
day. 

From  Madras  I  made  a  pilgrimage  to  St.  Thome,  about 
twenty  miles  away.  My  constitutional  liking  for  the  Doubt- 
ing Disciple  was  not  shared  by  any  of  the  hundred  Eng- 
lish passengers  on  our  ship  Teheran.  I  could  find  no 
one  to  accompany  me.  All  alone  save  for  my  driver  with 
Siva's  ashen  sign  on  his  forehead,  and  a  golden-brown 
boy  reclining  on  the  footboard  behind,  I  passed  through 
the  villages  and  lanes  of  a  land  whose  strange  growths, 
houses,  people,  birds,  made  every  mile  a  delight.  But  the 
country  was  sparsely  inhabited,  and  when  I  came  to  St. 
Thome  it  was  almost  uncanny  in  its  loneliness.  Climbing 
a  long  stone  stairway  to  the  top,  I  found  a  queer  rambling 
edifice  that  seemed  neither  church  nor  convent.  Enter- 
ing, I  found  a  Portuguese  priest  reading  a  large  book 
that  lay  on  a  plain  wooden  table,  this  and  three  chairs 
being  the  only  furniture.  The  floor  was  stone,  the  walls 
plain  plaster.  The  priest  received  me  cordially.  He  was 
a  man  of  perhaps  forty  years,  tall  and  slender ;  his  face 
was  pitted,  but  the  fine  features,  large  and  expressive  eye, 
sensitive  mouth  with  its  sweet  and  simple  voice,  drew  my 
heart  out  to  him.  To  my  apology  for  obtruding  on  him 
he  answered,  with  a  gentle  smile,  that  it  was  very  rare 
for  him  to  meet  any  one  from  Europe,  and  he  was  glad 
to  see  me.  I  told  him  that  I  was  not  a  Catholic,  but  had 
an  especial  interest  in  St.  Thomas,  on  whom  I  had  writ- 
ten a  pamphlet.  I  wished  to  study  the  story  of  his  apos- 
tolate  and  martyrdom  in  ancient  India.  The  priest  told 
me  that  he  dwelt  alone  save  for  the  neighbouring  Hindus  ; 
there  had  been  no  congregation  there  for  many  years; 


184  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

there  was  no  public  function  required  of  him  except  when 
a  few  pilgrims  came  on  the  saint's  day.  (He  said  this  in 
tolerable  English,  but  preferred  to  speak  in  French.)  He 
could  not  tell  me  the  age  of  the  building,  some  parts  of 
which  were  very  old.  When,  after  walking  about  it,  I 
suggested  that  some  parts  appeared  to  be  too  ancient  to 
have  been  originally  Christian,  he  inclined  to  the  same 
opinion,  but  had  sought  in  vain  for  the  facts,  —  for  he 
had  been  there  a  good  many  years.  The  priest  led  me 
to  a  small  cave  at  the  back  of  the  edifice,  in  which  is 
a  spring  believed  to  have  been  miraculously  evoked  by 
St.  Thomas.  Some  sixty  feet  off  is  a  large  flat  rock  sur- 
mounted by  a  small  monument,  where  the  saint  passed 
most  of  his  time  "amid  what  was  then  a  solitude."  In 
the  floor  of  the  little  chapel  are  memorial  tablets  with 
mainly  Portuguese  inscriptions,  —  one,  however,  being 
English,  —  nearly  all  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
chapel  is  dedicated  to  "Notre  Dame  de  Sante,"  who 
stands  far  up  against  the  wall  on  an  altar  poorly  off  for 
decorations.  St.  Thomas's  Day — the  solstice,  December 
21,  when  day  and  night  are  Didy muses  (twins),  and 
Time  stands  in  doubt  between  the  powers  of  Light  and 
Darkness  —  had  brought  but  few  pilgrims  the  month  be- 
fore. By  a  curving  stairway  beside  the  altar  we  descended 
—  stooping  low  and  following  a  candle  —  into  a  cave  where 
the  saint  is  said  to  have  hidden  from  pagan  pursuers.  One 
small  aperture  is  cut  through  the  rock  (five  feet  thick), 
and  we  could  stand  erect  only  in  one  corner.  On  a  rock- 
hewn  shelf  is  a  little  crucifix,  and  behind  it  a  tiny  framed 
picture  of  Christ,  but  there  were  no  ornaments.  Emerging 
into  the  light,  we  passed  by  a  long  stone  stairway  to  the 
foot  of  the  hill.  There  the  priest  pointed  out  an  inscrip- 
tion in  characters  "  concerning  which  there  are  doubts." 


ST.  THOMAS'S  FOOTPRINT  185 

Two  dagoba-like  structures,  each  six  feet  square  and  about 
nine  feet  to  the  apex,  cover  mysteriously  indented  rocks, 
supposed  by  some  to  be  marked  by  the  saint's  bones.  "  It 
is  doubtful  what  they  were  built  for,"  said  the  priest.  Near 
by  is  another  rock  retaining  the  impression  of  the  saint's 
foot  after  he  was  wounded.  This  "  footprint,"  larger  than 
that  of  an  ordinary  man,  is  but  very  vaguely  traceable  in 
a  discoloration  of  faint  yellow  and  red  on  the  light  sand- 
stone. It  is  slightly  indented,  as  if  worn  by  many  kisses. 

The  legend  of  St.  Thomas's  death  is  peculiar.  It  is  said 
that  a  Hindu  arrow  aimed  at  a  peacock  accidentally  and 
fatally  struck  the  heel  of  St.  Thomas.  This  looks  as  if  the 
Hindus  had  long  ago  repudiated  some  tradition  of  the 
saint's  "  martyrdom "  being  on  their  hands,  and  had 
shaped  it  after  the  legend  of  their  own  Saviour,  Krishna, 
who  also  died  of  a  wound  in  the  heel  from  the  arrow  of 
a  huntsman  not  aimed  at  him.  Near  the  stone  with  the 
reddish  stains  there  was  found  at  a  considerable  depth 
a  tablet  on  which  was  a  rudely  designed  dove,  and  an 
inscription  in  Pali  and  Persian  :  — 

"  In  punishment  of  the  cross  was  the  suffering  of  this 
one :  he  who  is  the  true  Christ,  and  God  above,  and 
Guide  ever  pure."  l 

The  Portuguese  priest,  when  I  asked  his  opinion  of  the 
alleged  footprint,  shook  his  head  silently,  but  thought  the 
long  continuance  of  the  legend  interesting.  He  believed 
that  the  relics,  which  he  had  seen,  were  in  the  church  at 
Mount  St.  Thome,  and  I  resolved  to  go  there. 

When  we  turned  away  from  this  spot  and  walked  to  a 
Hindu  village,  the  children  ran  to  greet  the  priest,  bowing 
their  foreheads  to  the  ground.  As  he  passed  along  the  little 

1  The  late  Mr.  Burnell  gave  an  account  with  plates  of  these  relics  in 
the  Indian  Antiquary,  vol.  iii,  p.  308. 


186  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

street  the  women  came  to  their  doors,  the  men  paused,  and 
he  spoke  pleasantly  to  them  all,  patting  the  children  on 
the  head.  I  asked  if  they  were  Christians  and  he  said, 
"  None  of  them."  So  deep  had  this  man  gone  into  their 
"  heathen  "  hearts  ! 

And  now  I  began  to  think  on  what  he  had  pointed  out, 
and  stopped  a  moment  or  two  to  enter  some  items  in  my 
note-book.  Then  a  theory  began  to  dawn  on  me.  Was  it 
not  the  ecclesiastical  metier  of  the  priest  in  charge  of  St. 
Thome  to  believe  all  of  the  Catholic  traditions  concerning 
the  miraculous  well,  the  footprint,  and  the  rest  ?  Yet  this 
man  had  spoken  hesitatingly  and  dubiously  about  every 
one  of  them.  I  looked  into  his  large  smiling  eye  and  felt 
certain  that  I  was  in  the  presence  of  a  Doubting  Disciple. 
This  learned  and  intellectual  man,  with  his  fine  personal- 
ity, worshipped  by  those  humble  Hindus,  —  why  was  he 
sent  out  at  middle  age  to  live  alone  without  congregation 
or  function  in  this  remote  spot  ?  Was  it  because  he  was 
found  to  be  a  sceptic,  a  doubting  Thomas  ? 

I  find  among  my  notes  written  that  day,  "  How  I  would 
like  to  have  a  day  of  intimate  talk  with  that  man ! " 
He  saw  that  I  loved  him,  and  urged  me  to  stay  longer ;  he 
could  give  me  food  and  lodging  ;  but  it  could  not  be ;  the 
Teheran  was  to  sail  early  next  morning.  So  we  parted. 

I  drove  on  two  miles  to  Mount  St.  Thome.  A  long  suc- 
cession of  stone  stairways,  up  which  on  the  saint's  day 
pilgrims  climb  on  their  knees,  brought  me  to  the  solitary 
white  church.  It  was  all  silent,  every  door  closed,  the 
windows  made  fast  with  shutters,  so  that  I  could  not 
get  a  glimpse  of  the  interior.  Two  tricolors  were  flying 
from  a  signal  station  at  one  corner  of  the  grounds,  and 
after  a  good  deal  of  calling  an  Englishman  appeared,  with 
evident  reluctance,  who  informed  me  that  the  priest  was 


MOUNT  ST.   THOME  187 

absent.  He  (the  priest)  was  a  native,  and  was  in  the  habit 
of  going  now  and  then  to  stay  among  the  villages  of  the 
district  for  a  fortnight  at  a  time.  He  had  now  been  absent 
for  five  days,  and  none  could  tell  his  whereabouts.  "Is 
there  anything  interesting  in  the  church  to  see  ?  "  I  asked. 
"  I  don't  know,"  replied  the  sole  occupant  of  the  hill,  "  I 
never  was  inside  it.  I  don't  belong  to  that,  but  to  the 
Church  of  England."  I  found  consolation  for  my  climb  in 
the  grand  view  which  the  height  commands  —  a  vast  plain 
of  banyans  and  palms,  with  a  few  villas  and  gleaming 
streams. 

As  I  passed  through  the  village  at  the  foot  of  the  mount 
I  observed  "  Hindu  Mount "  on  a  sign,  and  on  enquiry 
learned  that  the  Hindus  have  another  name  for  the  place, 
which  I  cannot  remember.  No  doubt  it  was,  like  every 
other  "  high  place  "  in  oriental  plains,  a  sacred  hill  before 
the  Christian  era,  and  probably  passed  to  the  Catholic  saint 
by  natural  selection. 

I  drove  two  miles  along  a  grand  avenue  of  banyans 
extending  from  the  base  of  the  mount.  Of  many  the 
branches,  hereafter  to  take  root,  hung  down  nearly  to  the 
earth  in  large  numbers,  like  vines.  The  lower  horizontal 
branches  of  others  were  gracefully  festooned.  But  a  num- 
ber were  already  buttressed  by  branches  turned  to  trunks 
seven  or  eight  inches  thick.  I  counted  as  many  as  thirteen 
trunks  to  one  tree.  The  road  on  each  side  was  hedged 
with  cactus,  and  beyond  were  beautiful  palms,  rising  out 
of  lakelets  formed  by  inundations.  But  after  all,  there 
was  no  other  scene  so  picturesque  as  the  thatched  villages 
and  the  villagers  in  their  combinations  of  colours  and  dark 
skins.  The  people  in  this  neighbourhood,  particularly  tall 
and  well  shaped,  formed  pretty  groups  in  the  fields,  where 
they  were  so  still  as  to  be  tableaux. 


188  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

A  graceful  young  Hindu  woman  was  seated  beneath  the 
shade  of  the  great  banyan,  her  children  grouped  pleasantly 
around  her,  and  all  so  absorbed  with  what  she  was  saying 
to  them  that  they  hardly  observed  my  approach.  The 
musical  voice  continued  on  one  side  while  I  was  counting 
the  downward  branches  on  the  other.  What  was  she  telling 
them  ?  Perhaps  the  tale  of  the  Madras  Princess  Savatri, 
who  refused  all  powerful  suitors  for  love  of  homeless  Sat- 
yavan ;  and  who  when  her  husband  was  killed  by  the  fall 
of  a  tree  in  the  forest,  and  Yama  came  for  his  own,  so 
moved  that  King  of  Death  by  her  beauty  and  her  gentle 
pleading  that  he  restored  Satyavan  to  her.  This  tale  is 
the  central  trunk  of  an  invisible  banyan  spread  in  many 
versions,  —  Love  subduing  Death ;  but  it  appears  to  me 
sweeter  and  truer  than  the  legends  of  resurrections  where 
the  muscular  power  of  a  Herakles  or  the  magic  might  of 
a  Christ  have  prevailed  over  the  king  of  terrors.  There  is 
no  need,  however,  that  we  should  seek  any  other  origin 
of  the  banyan-growth  of  such  legends  of  Love  than  in  the 
mother's  heart  there.  That  is  the  universal  witness  that 
there  is  Love  in  the  heart  of  nature  despite  inorganic 
cruelties.  If  there  was  any  Hindu  Thomas  of  old  to  say 
he  would  not  believe  in  Satyavan's  resurrection  unless  he 
saw  and  touched  the  scar  on  his  head,  there  would  be  a 
friendly  prophet  in  fez  to  say,  "  Satisfy  yourself,  Thomas ; 
you  are  right  to  demand  evidence ;  but  blind  belief  makes 
people  happier."  Every  missionary  —  unless  my  gentle 
Portuguese  sceptic  of  St.  Thome  —  must  be  a  Thomas  in 
denying  the  resurrection  of  Satyavan  in  order  to  signalize 
that  of  Jesus,  but  the  Savatri  and  Satyavan  folk-tale  will 
still  be  in  the  heart,  whatever  names  are  on  the  lips. 

Savatri  is  a  type,  as  Mary  Magdalene  at  the  sepulchre 
"  while  it  was  yet  dark  "  is  a  type,  of  the  Love  that  heals, 


THOMAS  AND   JUDAS  189 

that  quickens  dead  hearts.  Thomas  and  Judas  are  by  their 
aliases  Didymus  and  Iscariot  made  as  allegorical  as  if  they 
were  named  Mr.  Doublemind  and  Mr.  Facing-both-ways. 
These  two,  indeed,  seem  to  have  been  originally  one  figure ; 
in  the  Acts  of  Thomas  occurs  repeatedly  the  double 
name,  "  Judas  also  called  Thomas."  But  to  meet  Jewish 
scepticism  there  was  used  a  character  proving  that  Jesus 
was  not  arrested  because  he  could  not  prevent  it,  but  be- 
cause in  order  to  fulfil  the  minutest  messianic  prophecies 
and  conditions  he  had  knowingly  included  a  satanic  agent 
among  his  disciples ;  and  the  personification  of  this  agent  — 
Judas,  i.  e.  incarnation  of  Judaism  —  had  to  be  detached 
from  Thomas  (twin)  because  Gentile  sceptics  (who  might 
say  that  the  form  the  disciples  declared  to  be  their  risen 
Lord,  but  admittedly  could  not  recognize,  was  that  of 
some  impostor)  must  be  met  by  the  assertion  that  they 
(the  sceptics)  had  a  representative  among  the  disciples 
who  identified  Jesus  by  his  wounds. 

It  is  all  very  simple,  so  far  as  the  points  which  the  dark 
twin  and  the  luminous  twin  were  created  to  establish  are 
concerned,  but  it  cannot  be  safely  asserted  of  Thomas,  as 
of  Judas,  that  he  is  purely  fictitious.  The  Thomas-saga  has 
not  been  sufficiently  explored  as  yet,  and  there  are  traces 
of  a  gospel  bearing  his  name  suppressed  on  account  of  its 
heresies.1 

1  Ten  years  after  my  visit  to  St.  Thorns',  Drs.  Qrenfell  and  Hunt  of  Ox- 
ford discovered  the  Papyri  of  Oxyrhynchus,  apparently  of  the  third  cen- 
tury, which,  omitting  editorial  conjectures,  opens:  "These  are  the  words 
which  the  living  Jesus  said  to  ...  and  Thomas,  and  said  to  them,  Every 
one  that  hearkens  to  these  words  shall  never  taste  of  death."  "  Let  not 
him  who  seeks  cease  until  he  finds,  and  when  he  finds  he  shall  be  aston- 
ished ;  astonished  he  shall  reach  the  kingdom,  and  having  reached  the 
kingdom  he  shall  rest."  Professor  Lake  thinks  the  lost  name  before 
Thomas  was  Judas ;  he  also  says  that  an  Athos  MS.  asserts  that  the  story 
of  the  woman  taken  in  adultery  was  in  the  earlier  Gospel  of  Thomas.  (It 


190  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Although  everything  attributed  to  Christ  —  that  is  to 
the  post-resurrectional  supplanter  of  Jesus  —  has  to  be 
doubly  scrutinized,  I  think  that  on  some  occasion  he  may 
have  said  to  his  sceptical  friend,  probably  with  a  smile, 
"  Thomas,  you  can  believe  only  what  you  see ;  they  are 
happier  who  can  believe  without  seeing." 

In  my  long  experience  I  have  found  very  few  even 
among  rationalists  who  were  able  to  get  along  without 
believing  something  for  which  they  could  find  no  reason. 
Theodore  Parker  was  unable  to  harmonize  with  his  faith 
the  cruelty  of  a  cat  playing  with  a  terrified  mouse  before 
devouring  it,  yet  he  could  not  on  that  account  part  from 
belief  in  the  omnipotence  of  a  benevolent  Creator.  His 
English  friend  and  editor,  Frances  Power  Cobbe,  who 
devoted  many  years  to  the  protection  of  animals  from 
cruelty,  used  to  quote  Sir  Henry  Taylor's  terrible  lines,  — 

Fain  in  man 

Bears  the  high  mission  of  the  flail  and  fan, 
In  brutes  't  is  purely  piteous. 

But  I  have  in  vain  asked  of  eminent  theists  why  Omni- 

was  erased  from  the  Synoptics.)  The  "Gospel  according  to  Thomas" 
(probably  near  the  close  of  the  second  century)  was  condemned  by  Hip- 
polytus  in  a  passage  quoted  by  Grenfell  and  Hunt  which  shows  that  there 
was  a  sect  which  believed  that  Thomas  had  received  especial  confidences 
from  Jesus.  The  extract  from  Hippolytus  (Refut,  v.  7)  is  as  follows :  — 

"  But  they  (the  Naassenes)  assert  that  not  only  is  there  in  favour  of  their 
doctrine  testimony  to  be  drawn  from  the  mysteries  of  the  Assyrians,  but 
also  from  those  of  the  Phrygians  concerning  the  happy  nature,  concealed 
and  yet  at  the  same  time  disclosed,  of  things  that  have  been  and  are  com- 
ing into  existence  and  moreover  will  be  (a  happy  nature),  which  (the 
Naassene)  says  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  be  sought  for  within  a  man. 
And  concerning  this  [nature]  they  hand  down  an  explicit  passage  occurring 
in  the  Gospel  inscribed  '  according  to  Thomas, '  expressing  themselves 
thus  :  '  He  who  seeks  me  will  find  me  in  children  from  seven  years  old  ; 
for  there  concealed  I  shall  in  the  fourteenth  age  (or  teon)  be  made  mani- 
fest.' " 


VIRCIIANI)   R.    GANDHI 


PAIN   AND   PIETY  191 

potent  Love  should  use  tribulation  —  the  flail  and  fan  — 
on  human  beings  ?  No  good  parent  would  chastise  a  child 
if  he  were  omnipotent.  No  surgeon  would  cause  pain  if 
he  were  omnipotent.  I  once  lectured  for  Dr.  Felix  Adler's 
Ethical  Culture  Society  in  New  York  on  "The  Religion 
of  Humanity,"  my  contention  being  that  the  dogmas  of 
hereditary  sin,  imputed  guilt,  endless  punishment  were 
fair  transcripts  of  the  laws  of  nature,  the  great  error  being 
in  the  belief  that  these  injustices  and  agonies  of  nature 
were  the  laws  of  omnipotent  deity,  and  that  there  was 
any  creation  or  Creator.  My  argument  was  that  either 
the  omnipotence  or  the  goodness  or  the  existence  of  deity 
must  be  surrendered  by  Ethical  Religion.  Dr.  Adler  arose 
at  the  close  of  my  discourse  and  announced  that  on  the 
following  Sunday  he  would  review  it  and  state  his  differ- 
ences from  me.  An  engagement  in  another  city  prevented 
my  hearing  him,  and  I  could  find  no  report  of  his  criti- 
cisms, but  in  a  conversation  he  planted  himself  on  Kant's 
"  categorical  imperative,"  and  told  me  about  a  young  lady 
friend  of  his  whom  pain  had  brought  into  a  beautiful  and 
patient  spirit  as  she  was  slowly  dying.  Of  course  I  knew 
of  many  such  cases,  and  may  have  mentioned  to  him  — 
though  I  am  not  certain  of  this  —  the  case  of  a  young 
author  in  Brooklyn  whose  talent  and  culture  had  been 
developed  by  the  confinement  consequent  on  the  breaking 
of  his  back  in  childhood.  The  development  was  credit- 
able to  the  young  man,  but  by  no  means  creditable  to  the 
careless  cause  of  his  misfortune.  Of  course  a  wise  moralist 
has  to  be  somewhat  pathological  in  dealing  with  sufferers, 
but  he  will  none  the  less  say  with  Jesus,  Woe  to  him  by 
whom  the  suffering  comes.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  the  evils 
and  agonies  of  the  world  will  ever  be  much  diminished  so 
long  as  generations  are  trained  to  see  in  such  horrors  a 


192  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

divine  hand,  instead  of  seeing  that  hand  solely  in  the 
"eternal  feminine,"  as  Goethe  calls  it,  —  the  loving  and 
maternal  force,  weak  but  unwearied,  gently  pushing  back 
the  frontiers  of  wild  and  inorganic  nature. 

This  of  course  is  about  equivalent  to  saying  that  the 
evils  and  agonies  of  the  world  will  never  be  healed  at  all 
until  the  altars  of  the  existing  deities  so-called  are  en- 
tirely deserted.  In  nearly  all  religions  there  is  a  sort  of 
Pain-worship,  which  continues  in  the  favourite  word  of 
liberal  Christianity,  "  Self-sacrifice,"  and  in  the  faith  ex- 
pressed in  Tennyson's  "  Divine  depths  of  sorrow."  Why 
not  the  divine  depths  of  happiness  ?  Why  should  our 
children  be  trained  to  think  their  giving  up  some  pleasant 
thing  to  gratify  others  a  sacrifice  of  self  when  they  are 
thereby  gaining  grateful  smiles,  far  more  delightful  and 
precious  than  what  they  give  away  ?  After  all  the  ages, 
we  are  unable  to  see  with  Jesus  that  it  is  greater  happi- 
ness to  give  than  to  receive,  and  must  needs  go  on  say- 
ing "  It  is  more  blessed,"  that  is,  that  God  pays  it  back 
to  us. 

One  of  the  most  mild  and  liberal  religions  in  India  is 
the  Jain.  They  have  no  priests,  but  some  public  teachers. 
One  of  these,  Virchand  K.  Gandhi,  stayed  at  my  house 
in  London  nearly  a  week,  and  my  wife  and  I  found  him 
attractive  in  conversation,  though  we  could  not  under- 
stand his  very  mystical  ideas.  He  shrank  from  even  the 
smallest  thing  that  inclined  towards  self-indulgence.  He 
would  not  remain  alone  with  a  lady.  (This  is  a  Talmudic 
regulation.)  He  gave  me  a  picture  —  it  is  now  before 
me  —  which  represents  the  Jain  idea  of  the  moral  con- 
dition of  mankind.  There  is  a  banyan-tree  on  a  limb  of 
which  bees  have  hived  a  mass  of  honeycomb,  and  be- 
neath is  a  dilapidated  well  in  which  are  seen  venomous 


A  COMPOSITE  PICTURE  193 

serpents.  A  man  has  fallen  into  the  well.  He  is  kept 
from  sinking  and  drowning  by  holding  on  to  the  end  of 
a  frail  branch  which  descends  from  the  tree.  As  he  holds 
on,  the  honey  drops  down  to  his  lips,  and  so  absorbed  is 
he  with  the  sweetness  of  this  honey  that  he  does  not  no- 
tice the  serpents  gathering  near  him,  nor  a  rat  above 
gnawing  the  slender  limb  he  clings  to,  nor  an  elephant 
whose  trunk  is  about  to  pull  down  the  entire  tree;  nor 
does  he  regard  at  all  a  holy  teacher  with  his  staff  offering 
to  save  him.  This  holy  man  is  in  the  garb  of  a  Buddhist 
priest,  but  he  has  beard  and  hair  much  like  an  early 
conventionalized  Christ,  and  a  sort  of  aspersoir  under  his 
left  arm.  I  suspect  the  picture  to  be  composite,  —  Brah- 
manism,  Buddhism,  and  Catholicism  perverting  some  sim- 
ple fable  reminding  man  that  he  may  be  so  absorbed  in 
one  pleasure  or  passion  as  to  suffer  by  the  atrophy  of  other 
senses  and  faculties.  It  may  be  feared  that  unphilosophi- 
cal  little  Jains  are  brought  up  with  some  suspicion  that 
sweet  things  generally  are  wicked  and  dangerous.  When 
we  go  back  to  the  earliest  ages  we  find  more  religion  of 
joy  than  in  the  modern  world :  it  is  so  in  the  Vedic  hymns 
and  Zend  litanies. 

While  Christianity,  claiming  to  have  come  into  the 
world  with  glad  tidings  of  great  joy  to  all  mankind,  has 
shed  more  blood  and  caused  more  misery  than  all  other 
religions  put  together,  the  Buddhist  religion,  beginning 
with  a  philosophy  that  seems  pessimistic,  —  without  deity 
or  faith  in  any  paradise,  heavenly  or  millennial, —  has  pro- 
duced the  happiest  believers  on  earth.  Many  a  Christian 
child  moping  under  a  miserable  Sabbath,  forbidden  games 
and  sports,  overshadowed  by  equal  fear  of  deity  and 
devil,  giving  his  pennies  or  dimes  to  send  his  gloom  to 
Ceylon's  isle,  —  ah,  many  a  child  might  envy  the  joyous 


194  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

innocence  of  those  children  in  Ceylon,  growing  up  under 
the  spirit  of  the  ancient  carol  derived  from  Buddha :  — 

This  is  what  should  be  done  by  him  who  is  wise  in 
seeking  his  own  good,  and  gaining  a  knowledge  of  the 
tranquil  lot  of  Nirvana :  — 

Let  him  be  diligent,  upright,  and  conscientious ;  not 
vainglorious,  but  gentle  and  lowly ; 

Contented  and  cheerful ;  not  oppressed  with  cares ; 
not  burdened  with  riches ;  tranquil,  prudent,  free  from 
arrogance  and  avarice. 

Let  him  not  do  any  mean  action,  nor  incur  the  re- 
proval  of  wise  men. 

Let  all  creatures  be  prosperous  and  happy,  let  them  be 
of  joyful  mind ;  all  beings  that  have  life,  be  they  feeble 
or  strong,  be  they  minute  or  vast : 

Seen  or  unseen,  near  or  afar,  born  or  seeking  birth,  let 
all  beings  be  joyful. 

Let  no  man  deceive  another ;  let  none  be  harsh  to  any ; 
let  none  wish  ill  to  his  neighbour. 

Let  the  love  that  fills  a  mother's  heart  as  she  watches 
over  an  only  child,  even  such  love  animate  all  towards  all. 

Let  the  good  will  that  is  boundless,  immeasurable, 
impartial,  unmixed  with  enmity,  prevail  throughout  the 
world  —  above,  below,  around. 

If  a  man  be  of  this  mind,  wherever  he  moves,  and  in 
every  moment,  the  saying  is  come  to  pass,  "  This  place  is 
the  abode  of  holiness." 


CHAPTER  X 

Adyar  —  Mme.  Blavatsky  and  her  confession  —  The  Theosophists  —  An 
American  receiving  the  Buddhist  pansala  —  The  attempted  fraud  on  the 
Broughtons  —  Letter  of  Commissioner  Broughton  —  Origin  of  Koo- 
thoomi —  Revelations  of  Mme.  Coulomb. 

WHEN  Mme.  Blavatsky  was  on  her  way  from  New 
York  to  India  she  stopped  for  some  days  in  Lon- 
don, and  my  wife  and  I  were  invited  to  meet  her  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  William  Tebb.  Mrs.  Conway  was 
not  attracted  by  her,  but  I  found  her  entertaining.  She 
had  nothing  that  could  be  described  as  culture ;  and  though 
the  work,  "  Isis  Unveiled,"  ascribed  to  her,  was  without 
value  to  me  so  far  as  I  read  it,  I  have  never  believed 
she  could  write  anything  so  elaborate.  In  fact,  though 
Mme.  Blavatsky  was  entertaining,  it  was  because  of  her 
gossipy  knowledge  of  contemporary  persons  and  events. 
Such  at  any  rate  was  the  kind  of  conversation  she  car- 
ried on  with  myself,  and  I  wondered  how  my  thoughtful 
friends,  the  Tebbs,  could  take  her  so  seriously. 

After  a  time  reports  came  from  India  of  Mme.  Blavat- 
sky's  new  religion  called  Theosophy,  and  of  her  miracles. 
Marion  Crawford  introduced  a  mysterious  "  Mahatma  " 
into  his  romance,  "  Mr.  Isaacs,"  and  was  proudly  claimed 
by  Theosophists  (whom,  however,  and  their  wonders  he 
ridiculed  in  conversation  on  my  mentioning  the  matter). 
At  length  Mr.  Sinnett  came  to  London  from  India  as  an 
apostle  of  the  new  faith,  of  which  he  gave  strange  narra- 
tives, mostly  to  the  elite  gathered  in  fashionable  drawing- 
rooms.  I  listened  to  several  of  his  addresses,  and  after 
one  in  which  he  told  of  the  wonderful  Mahatmas,  who 


196  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

had  lived  for  ages  and  were  now  semi-visibly  revealing 
themselves,  I  had  some  conversation  with  him.  I  was 
About  to  go  to  India,  and  enquired  whether  I  could  find 
out  one  of  the  Mahatmas.  He  gave  a  start,  and  with  a 
look  of  surprise  said,  "  Do  you  mean,  can  you  see  and 
talk  with  a  Mahatma  as  you  are  talking  with  me  now  ?  " 
"Yes,"  I  replied,  unconscious  of  my  naivete.  "No,"  he 
answered,  and  went  on  with  a  nebulous  explanation. 

Mr.  Sinnett's  book,  "  Esoteric  Buddhism,"  gave  me  an 
impression  that  Mme.  Blavatsky  had  simply  invented  a 
new  set  of  archangels  and  saints  to  supply  that  rever- 
ential fog  amid  which  all  impostures  are  possible.  It  was, 
however,  a  serious  thing  that  such  notions  should  infect 
excellent  people,  and  it  became  one  of  my  duties  as  a 
public  teacher  to  investigate  it.  All  the  way  around  the 
world  I  was  urged  by  persons  of  influence  to  examine 
Theosophy  in  India.  In  Sydney,  Judge  Windeyer,  in 
whose  house  I  passed  several  days,  and  who  was  one  of 
the  best  of  men,  assured  me  that  I  would  find  the  evi- 
dences of  Theosophy  irresistible.  In  the  same  city  the  late 
Professor  John  Smith  said  he  had  been  impressed  by  his 
interviews  with  Mme.  Blavatsky,  and  I  promised  him  and 
his  wife,  to  whom  I  owed  much  for  their  hospitality,  that 
I  would  investigate  the  matter. 

And  thus  it  was  that  on  a  bright  day  in  1884,  begin- 
ning with  the  elephant-headed  god  of  wisdom  at  Madras, 
and  travelling  to  the  shrine  of  Doubting  Didj^mus  and 
his  lonely  priest,  I  proceeded  to  visit  the  high  priestess  of 
Theosophy. 

The  centre  of  the  Theosophic  cult  is  Adyar.  On  the 
gateway  was  written,  "  Headquarters  of  the  Theosophical 
Society."  At  the  entrance  of  the  park  was  the  dilapi- 
dated carcass  of  a  blue  pasteboard  elephant,  which  it  ap- 


MADAME   BLAVATSKY 


ADYAR  197 

peared  some  Madras  believer  had  set  up  on  a  recent  Theo- 
sophic  anniversary.  The  carriage-road  wound  through 
a  leafy  park  up  to  a  handsome  bungalow.  The  spacious 
veranda  displayed  every  elegance,  but  it  was  unoccupied. 
For  a  few  minutes  my  driver  vainly  tried  to  find  some  one 
about  the  place,  and  I  was  conscious  of  a  half  hope  that  no 
one  might  be  at  home.  My  arrival,  however,  was  known  : 
a  young  Babu  came  to  bring  me  the  "  Countess  "  Blavat- 
sky's  welcome,  and  to  say  she  would  presently  receive  me. 
Next  a  Hindu  youth  of  remarkable  appearance  —  deli- 
cate, almost  maidenly  —  advanced  ;  but  when,  in  response 
to  his  greeting,  I  held  out  my  hand,  he  said  sweetly, 
"  I  cannot  shake  hands  with  you."  I  afterwards  learned 
that  this  youth  was  "  a  lay  chela,"  that  he  already  pos- 
sessed the  power  of  appearing  at  a  distance  in  his  "  astral" 
body,  and  that  if  he  shook  hands  his  magnetism  might  be 
impaired. 

I  was  sorry  to  hear  that  the  president, "  Colonel"  Olcott, 
was  absent.  He  was  founding  a  new  branch  of  the  soci- 
ety somewhere.  The  "  Countess  "  Blavatsky  was  cordial, 
and  urged  my  remaining  till  the  morning.  I  accepted  her 
invitation  so  far  as  the  rest  of  the  evening  was  concerned, 
and  was  there  nearly  six  hours.  Besides  the  two  men- 
tioned, there  were  two  other  native  gentlemen,  one  of  them 
(Norendronath  Sen)  known  to  me  by  reputation  as  editor 
of  the  "  Indian  Mirror."  America  was  represented  in  the 
company  by  a  Dr.  Hartmann  of  Colorado.  Another  per- 
son present  was  Mr.  W.  T.  Brown  of  Glasgow,  a  young 
man  of  pleasant  manners,  who  told  me  some  of  his  mar- 
vellous experiences  ;  but  when  I  intimated  that  I  would 
like  to  carry  away  some  little  marvel  of  my  own  expe- 
rience, the  reply  unpleasantly  recalled  vain  attempts  made 
through  many  years  to  witness  a  verifiable  spiritualistic 


198  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

"  phenomenon."  I  was  once  more  put  off  with  narratives 
of  what  had  occurred  before  I  came,  and  predictions  of 
what  might  occur  if  I  should  come  again.  There  was  a 
cabinet  shrine  in  which  letters  were  deposited  and  swift 
answers  received  from  the  wonderful  Mahatmas ;  but  when 
I  proposed  to  write  a  note,  I  was  informed  that  only  a  few 
days  before  the  Mahatmas  had  forbidden  any  further  cab- 
inet correspondence.  I  said  that  was  just  my  luck  in  such 
matters ;  wherever  a  miracle  occurs  I  was  always  too  soon 
or  too  late  to  see  it.  My  experience  was  that  of  Alice  in 
the  Looking-glass,  —  "  Jam  yesterday,  jam  to-morrow,  but 
never  jam  to-day." 

Mme.  Blavatsky  had  been  forewarned  by  Professor  John 
Smith  of  my  visit,  and  as  a  shrewd  reader  of  thoughts  saw 
that  I  regarded  the  new  order  against  letters  as  aimed  at 
my  investigation.  I  was  careful,  however,  not  to  say  that 
I  thought  it  unreasonable  for  the  Mahatma  to  foreclose 
the  cabinet  test  just  as  his  omniscience  knew  that  one 
was  coming  who  needed  the  wonders  so  much  more  than 
the  convinced  already.  My  self-restraint  in  not  pressing 
the  point  in  company  pleased  her.  Some  of  the  young 
neophytes  moved  off  the  veranda  and  strolled  medita- 
tively under  the  palms.  Their  faces  were  serenely  solemn  ; 
they  did  not  talk  or  smile  ;  they  impressed  me  out  there 
as  rare  plants  in  a  nursery,  that  must  be  severally  kept 
under  glass  in  cold  weather.  These  Hindu  neophytes,  not 
one  of  them  feminine,  were  of  wealthy  families  and  of  high 
caste ;  I  was  told  that  the  handsome  mansion  was  furnished 
by  them.  Mr.  Sinnett  and  others  in  England  and  Amer- 
ica were  talking  a  good  deal  about  great  sacrifices  made 
by  the  "Countess"  for  the  sake  of  her  cause,  but  I  saw 
no  trace  or  suggestion  of  martyrdom  at  the  headquarters. 
The  house,  surrounded  by  a  fine  park,  was  spacious  and 


MME.    BLAVATSKY  199 

pretty;  the  long  veranda  was  well  supplied  with  easy 
chairs  softly  cushioned,  and  a  table  with  English  and 
American  magazines  and  the  new  novels ;  and  madame 
drove  in  her  own  neat  carriage  with  fine  horses,  as  I  had 
grateful  reason  to  know,  having  returned  to  Madras  in 
it.  While  never  regarding  Mme.  Blavatsky's  career  as 
inspired  by  desire  for  gain,  I  cannot  but  smile  whenever 
I  hear  Theosophists  talk  about  her  movement  in  India  as 
wrought  by  self -sacrificing  devotion.  Certainly  there  was 
no  pretence  of  that  kind  in  Mme.  Blavatsky  herself.  She 
sat  in  her  large  decorated  chair,  in  an  airy  white  beltless 
gown  much  in  the  style  of  the  midsummer  dress  of  Rus- 
sian ladies,  endlessly  smoking  cigarettes,  conversing  in  a 
free  and  easy  way,  and  putting  on  no  airs  at  all.  Madame 
was  not  pretty,  but  she  was  a  notable  figure,  her  eyes  capa- 
ble of  every  variety  of  expression,  and  her  humour  always 
playing. 

At  a  certain  moment  when  we  happened  to  be  alone  on 
the  veranda  madame  arose  and  asked  me  to  follow  her. 
She  led  me  through  a  hall  and  along  a  corridor,  then  up 
a  stairway  to  a  boudoir  richly  decorated.  There  she  in- 
vited me  to  take  a  seat,  and  proffered  a  box  of  cigarettes, 
lighting  one  for  herself.  I  preferred  my  cigar,  and  was 
ready  for  an  apparently  intended  encounter.  She  asked 
what  was  my  particular  proposal  or  desire.  I  said,  "  I 
wish  to  find  out  something  about  the  strange  performances 
attributed  to  you.  I  hear  of  your  drawing  teapots  from 
under  your  chair,  taking  brooches  out  of  flowers,  and  of 
other  miracles.  If  such  things  really  occur  I  desire  to 
know  it,  and  to  give  a  testimony  to  my  people  in  London 
in  favour  of  Theosophy.  What  does  it  all  mean  ?  " 

She  said  with  a  serene  smile,  "  I  will  tell  you,  because 
you  are  a  public  teacher  [here  she  added  some  flattery], 


200  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

and  you  ought  to  know  the  truth :  it  is  all  glamour  —  people 
think  they  see  what  they  do  not  see  —  that  is  the  whole 
of  it." 

It  was  impossible  not  to  admire  the  art  of  this  confession. 
Mme.  Blavatsky,  forewarned  by  Professor  John  Smith  of 
my  intended  investigation,  had  arranged  precisely  the  one 
manoeuvre  that  could  thwart  it.  Had  I  continued  it,  cross- 
examining  her  adherents,  proposing  plans  for  verification, 
I  might  have  awakened  doubts  and  suspicions  among  her 
"  neophytes."  But  she  spiked  my  guns ;  her  confession 
was  made  without  witnesses,  and  should  I  use  it  publicly 
it  was  easy  enough  to  say  I  had  misunderstood  her.  And 
moreover  she  had  used  the  vague  word  "  glamour,"  which 
might  preserve  her  personal  throne  while  giving  up  the 
reality  of  the  things  attested  by  her  miracles. 

I  did  not  press  the  matter  at  all.  I  felt  that  madame 
was  a  genius  in  her  way,  and  a  moral  phenomenon  to  be 
studied,  but  she  made  no  pretences  with  me.  Of  the 
common  Theosophic  talk  about  a  new  era,  welfare  of 
humanity,  reincarnation,  there  was  no  trace  whatever. 
Not  a  word  about  "  Occultism  "  or  any  other  "  ism  "  came 
from  her,  nor  anything  in  the  way  of  an  abstraction. 
She  gossiped  wittily  and  sometimes  satirically  about  this 
or  that  person  she  had  met  in  America,  London,  Paris, 
and  told  amusing  anecdotes. 

About  seven  a  signal  for  dinner  interrupted  the  bou- 
doir interview.  There  were  seven  or  eight  at  the  large 
round  table,  all  of  us  whites.  The  dinner  was  excellent, 
but  one  or  two  of  the  young  men  did  not  eat  the  meat. 
Mme.  Blavatsky  ate  little  and  smoked  most  of  the  time. 
In  the  talk,  which  was  all  about  Theosophic  marvels, 
Mme.  Blavatsky  did  not  participate  except  with  some 
such  remark  as,  "  There>,  Mr.  Conway,  what  can  be  said 


ORIGIN  OF  KOOTHOOMI  201 

of  such  events  ?  "  etc.  She  limited  herself  to  mild  inter- 
jections, but  meantime  exchanging  with  me  humorous 
looks ;  for  the  situation  was  indeed  amusing. 

There  was  at  the  table  a  woman  to  whom  I  was  not  in- 
troduced, but  whom  I  remarked  because  she  did  not  say 
a  word  nor  even  smile  during  the  meal,  and  I  thought 
watched  me  closely. 

There  were  named  three  Mahatmas  in  the  Blavatsky 
system:  Koothoomi,  Morya,  and  Djual  Khoot.  I  strongly 
suspect  the  latter  to  be  another  of  Mme.  Blavatsky's  jokes. 
Having  created  the  imaginary  Koothoomi  (originally  Kot- 
thume)  by  piecing  together  parts  of  the  names  of  her 
two  chief  disciples,  Olcott  and  Hume,  that  success  prob- 
ably led  her  to  create  another  Mahatma,  —  a  second 
Cott  (Olcott)  travestied  as  a  dual  or  Djual  Khoot. 

After  dinner  the  young  men  were  all  eager  to  have 
me  go  into  the  sacred  room,  though  Mme.  Blavatsky  was 
rather  reluctant.  It  was  a  small  room  and  its  only  fur- 
niture the  so-called  "  shrine," —  really  a  cabinet  such  as 
Spiritualists  ordinarily  use,  though  smaller,  and  such  as 
Mme.  Blavatsky  herself  probably  used  when  a  spirit-rap- 
ping medium  in  America.  The  only  persons  I  remember 
present  besides  Mme.  Blavatsky  were  two  young  Hindus, 
and  on  entering  they  instantly  prostrated  themselves  on 
the  floor,  flat  on  their  stomachs,  burying  their  eyes  under 
folded  hands.  It  occurred  to  me  that  I  myself  could  per- 
form miracles  among  such  witnesses.  Madame  stood  with 
an  amused  smile  looking  from  the  neophytes  to  me.  She 
then  opened  the  doors  of  the  cabinet,  which  was  about  five 
feet  high  by  four  wide.  It  was  tastefully  decorated,  and 
when  opened  richly  wrought  metal  was  disclosed.  In  it 
sat  a  small  Buddha,  and  on  each  side,  in  frames  about 
seven  inches  high,  a  picture.  These  were  of  two  light-brown 


202  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

persons,  the  chief  "Mahatmas,"  done  by  some  process 
said  to  be  occult.  The  portrait  of  "  Koothoomi "  was,  I  feel 
sure,  from  one  of  Rammohun  Roy  made  in  London  by  my 
old  friend  James  Philp.  A  copy  of  the  portrait  of  that 
famous  founder  of  Brahmo  theism,  given  me  by  Franklin 
Philp  in  Washington,  had  been  on  my  wall  thirty  years  be- 
fore I  saw  him  faked  up  as  "  Koothoomi,"  with  a  praying 
machine  on  his  head.  The  other  Mahatma  in  the  cabinet 
was  Morya,  who  seemed  to  be  a  Rajah  from  some  sacred 
picture,  perhaps  a  manipulated  Rama.  I  again  proposed 
to  leave  a  letter  to  one  of  the  Mahatmas,  but  madame 
shrugged  her  shoulders  and  closed  the  cabinet. 

When  we  had  returned  to  the  veranda  most  of  the 
young  men  declared  they  had  at  times  seen  Koothoomi. 
Knowing  well  that  Koothoomi  was  a  name  twisted  from 
Ol[cott-Hume],  and  that  no  such  being  existed,  I  still 
did  not  question  the  good  faith  of  these  young  men ;  but 
I  quietly  cross-examined  them,  without  seeming  to  do  so, 
and  found  that  they  had  seen  him  generally  in  his 
"  astral "  body.  Three  thought  they  had  seen  him  once 
in  his  physical  body,  but  their  testimony  was  unsatisfac- 
tory, especially  as  I  had  observed  in  the  sacred  room  their 
method  of  observing  things  with  their  eyes  close  to  the 
floor.  Mr.  Brown  of  Glasgow  was  candid  in  his  narrative 
of  his  three  meetings  with  Koothoomi.  On  the  first  occa- 
sion he  said  he  was  so  overwhelmed  with  awe  that  he 
"could  not  look  upon  him."  On  the  next  occasion  the 
Mahatma  was  at  some  little  distance,  his  head  and  lower 
face  being  covered  after  the  manner  of  sacred  Rajahs. 
On  the  last  occasion  it  was  at  night,  Mr.  Brown  being  in 
bed,  and  he  only  knew  that  he  had  been  with  Koothoomi 
by  a  handkerchief  marked  "  K.  H."  slipped  into  his  hand 
with  a  letter.  It  was  evident  that  Mr.  Brown  was  sincere, 


THEOSOPHIC   MIRACLES  203 

m  \ 

and  also  that  he  had  no  perception  of  the  nature  of  evi- 
dence. Several  of  the  letters  received  from  "  K.  H."  were 
shown  me  ;  they  were  the  merest  commonplace  notes, 
without  any  value  whatever  unless  read  with  occult  emo- 
tions. 

When  I  left  in  the  evening  for  Madras,  Madame 
Blavatsky  said  merrily  that  she  would  make  me  an 
"  astral "  visit  in  London.  I  reminded  her  that  I  had  in 
the  morning  looked  with  doubt  on  the  footprint  of  St. 
Thomas,  the  disciple  who  would  not  believe  in  the  ex- 
istence of  his  Mahatma  without  touching  him,  and  that 
his  sceptical  spirit  is  still  in  the  earth. 

I  was  surprised  next  morning,  when  we  were  out  at  sea 
on  the  Teheran  to  find  on  board  Norendronath  Sen,  whom 
I  had  seen  at  Adyar,  still  more  to  hear  from  him  that 
while  I  was  in  the  presence  of  the  cabinet  a  "  sign  "  had 
been  given  of  which  I  took  no  notice.  The  young  men 
had  told  him  that  when  I  entered  the  room  a  bell  rang  in 
a  place  where  there  was  no  bell.  I  remarked  only  that 
it  was  unaccountable  that  my  attention  should  not  have 
been  called  to  it  at  the  time.  This  Mr.  Sen,  of  the  "  Indian 
Mirror,"  was  a  relative  of  the  Brahmo  leader,  Keshub 
Chunder  Sen.  That  he  did  not  have  perfect  faith  in  the 
Theosophic  miracles  was  evident  to  me  from  the  fact  of 
his  expressing  regret  that  the  movement  should  be  per- 
mitted to  be  anything  more  than  an  ethical  and  religious 
reformation.  He  rather  complained  of  myself  and  others 
who  were  interested  only  in  the  "signs  and  wonders," 
being  thus  the  means  of  preventing  Theosophy  from  de- 
veloping into  the  great  Reformed  Religion  of  India.  He 
was  an  intelligent  man,  and  I  received  from  him  a  clear 
idea  of  the  causes  which  had  given  so-called  Theosophy  its 
success.  While  Madame  Blavatsky  had,  in  my  opinion, 


204  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

no  real  interest  in  the  moral  and  religious  "  regeneration  " 
of  India,  and  would  I  think  have  sympathized  with  my 
own  dislike  of  the  Christianizing  propaganda,  these  schol- 
arly Hindus  were  dreaming  of  an  ideal  religion  built  out 
of  their  own  history  and  literature.  And  it  was  an  event 
whose  importance  we  western  people  can  hardly  compre- 
hend when  there  appeared  from  America  this  company  of 
people  who  had  abandoned  every  form  of  Christianity, 
taken  up  their  abode  in  India  to  lead  in  the  work  of  at 
once  rehabilitating  and  revising  these  ancient  systems,  and 
pointed  Hindus  and  Buddhists  to  their  own  scriptures 
and  prophets  as  fountains  of  faith  and  hope.  They  natu- 
rally gained  a  hold  on  the  hearts  of  these  people,  and  in 
a  few  years  moved  and  attracted  them  more  than  did  the 
Christian  missionaries  in  as  many  centuries. 

I  have  spoken  of  Dr.  Hartmann  of  Colorado.  In  Co- 
lombo the  chief  priest  Sumangala  told  me  he  had  re- 
ceived from  "  Colonel  "  Olcott  of  New  York  a  request  for 
"permission"  to  administer  pansala  to  Dr.  Hartmann, 
and  had  granted  it.  Pansala  means  the  five  precepts  of 
Buddhism,  and  their  administration  to  any  individual 
means  his  initiation  into  the  higher  grade  of  Buddhism. 
This  ceremony  had  been  performed  in  Madras  by  "  Colo- 
nel" Olcott.  In  the  midst  of  a  circle  of  devout  orien- 
tal people  stood  these  two  Americans.  The  one  repeated, 
the  other  responded  to,  the  ancient  and  solemn  for- 
mula, "I  take  refuge  in  Buddha!  I  take  refuge  in  re- 
ligion !  I  take  refuge  in  truth ! "  Before  the  assembly 
Dr.  Hartmann  pledged  his  honour  to  observe  the  five 
precepts,  —  to  abstain  from  theft ;  to  abstain  from  lying ; 
to  abstain  from  taking  life ;  to  abstain  from  intoxicating 
drinks ;  to  abstain  from  adultery.  The  spectacle,  two 
Americans  abandoning  Christianity  and  adopting  an 


MME.   BLAVATSKY'S   "GLAMOUR"      205 

oriental  religion,  touched  the  Hindu  imagination.  It  was 
unique,  even  among  the  anomalies  of  theological  history. 

But  Mme.  Blavatsky  was  not  a  woman  of  imagination, 
she  was  a  woman  of  the  world.  It  is  said  that  she  ran 
away  from  her  Russian  home  in  girlhood  to  travel  with  a 
circus,  and  she  appeared  to  me  as  an  actress  trained  by 
many  adventures  to  a  morbid  desire  to  sway  men.  With- 
out beauty,  she  made  the  most  of  her  wit,  and  had  man- 
aged to  get  a  few  able  men  to  commit  themselves  to  her 
magical  pretensions.  Possibly  she  possessed  some  of  the 
power  now  called  "  hypnotic."  When  I  met  Mrs.  Anne 
Besant,  whom  I  had  so  long  known  as  a  freethinker,  after 
her  conversion  to  Theosophy,  I  told  her  what  Mme.  Blavat- 
sky had  said  to  me  about  its  being  all  "  glamour."  Mrs. 
Besant  said  that  "glamour"  implied  a  good  deal;  to  make 
one  see  a  person  in  one's  room,  even  if  there  was  no  person 
there,  was  a  marvellous  power.  But  she  thought  I  must 
have  been  mistaken  in  thinking  madame  had  added  "  that 
is  the  whole  of  it." 

Mme.  Blavatsky's  fault  as  a  thaumaturgist  was  too 
great  eagerness  to  capture  distinguished  people.  I  was 
told  at  Bombay  that  she  had  to  give  up  her  residence 
there  by  the  exposure  of  her  effort  to  deceive  the  prince 
(now  Edward  VII),  and  a  daring  attempt  at  fraud  in  1882 
no  doubt  led  to  her  leaving  Calcutta.  About  this  latter 
affair  I  was  able  to  ascertain  the  facts. 

I  had  brought  a  letter  of  introduction  from  a  leading 
barrister  in  London,  Charles  C.  Macrae,  to  an  eminent 
English  official  in  Calcutta,  Commissioner  Broughton, 
who  with  his  wife,  a  lady  distinguished  in  society,  were 
persons  whom  Mme.  Blavatsky  naturally  desired  to  have 
in  her  train.  Mr.  Broughton  told  me  the  story  of  the 
collusion  between  Mme.  Blavatsky  and  Mr.  Eglinton 


206  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

(a  London  "  medium,"  who  had  been  holding  seances  in 
Calcutta)  to  impose  on  his  wife  and  himself.  The  facts 
were  subsequently  written  for  me  in  detail  by  him  and  are 
curious  enough  to  be  placed  on  record  in  the  Blavatsky 

annals. 

3  OUTKAM  ST.,  CALCUTTA. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  happy  to  tell  you  all  I  know 
about  the  letter  said  to  have  been  brought  from  the 
Vega,  and  as  some  of  the  passengers  are  now  here  I 
showed  your  letter  to  them,  and  enclose  their  respective 
accounts.  My  wife  is  in  Europe,  and  may  write  to  you 
herself.  I  have  sent  these  letters  to  her,  with  your  own. 
With  regard  to  my  own  knowledge  of  the  transaction,  I 
was  in  Calcutta,  and  a  friend  was  staying  with  me, — 
Mr.  H.  Blanford,  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  and  head 
of  the  Meteorological  Department,  a  practical  man,  not 
I  think  disposed  to  judge  wrongly  one  way  or  the  other. 
We  both  know  Mrs.  Gordon,  the  lady  to  whom  Mr.  Eglin- 
ton  wrote,  or  says  he  wrote,  from  the  Vega  while  at  sea, 
and  I  am  on  friendly  terms  with  her,  as  is  Mr.  Blan- 
ford, to  the  best  of  my  belief.  She  called  at  my  house  a 
day  or  two  after  the  Vega  had  left  Colombo,  and  pro- 
duced a  letter,  an  envelope,  and  two  or  three  cards. 
The  letter  was  from  Mr.  Eglinton ;  it  was  not  in  the  en- 
velope, but  was  attached  to  it  by  a  string  in  the  corner, 
which  was  also  passed  through  the  corners  of  the  cards. 
These  cards  had  writing  upon  them,  which  we  were  told 
was  the  writing  of  Mme.  Blavatsky,  then  at  Poona ;  the 

writing  on  the  cards  referred  to 
the  contents  of  the  letter.  The 
envelope  had  three  crosses  upon 
it  in  the  positions  I  have  indi- 
cated. Mrs.  Gordon  stated  that  these  letters  had  been 


MR.  BROUGHTON'S  LETTER  207 

brought  to  her  the  day  before  by  what  are  called  "  astral " 
means,  having  been  conveyed  from  the  Vega — then  on  the 
way  from  Colombo  to  Aden  —  first  to  Poona,  and  then 
from  Poona  to  her  residence  in  Hourah,  a  suburb  of 
Calcutta.  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  Mrs.  Gordon 
firmly  believed  this,  and  I  am  under  the  impression  that 
she  believes  it  still,  but  I  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of 
meeting  her  for  some  time.  Mr.  Blanford  and  I,  however, 
ventured  to  ask  a  few  gentlemen  as  to  the  circumstances 
under  which  the  letters  made  their  appearance  at  Hourah, 
and  the  replies  led  us  to  form  an  opinion  that  the  lady 
might  have  been  imposed  upon. 

The  circumstances,  which  were,  I  believe,  considered  to 
amount  to  strong  proof  in  favour  of  the  "  astral "  theory, 
were  published  in  a  paper  called  the  "  Psychic  Notes," 
which  for  a  short  period  in  that  year  had  been  published, 
I  think  weekly,  in  Calcutta. 

I  wrote  to  my  wife,  and  sent  this  account,  substan- 
tially as  I  have  now  stated  it,  to  her ;  and  she  replied 
that  Mr.  Eglinton  had  brought  a  letter  to  her  to  be 
marked,  that  it  had  a  cross  upon  it,  that  she  was  asked 
to  mark  another  or  others,  and  that  she  did  so,  crossing 
the  first  cross  in  this  manner. 
I  will  add  that  when  my  wife 
left  Calcutta  I  accompanied  her, 
with  some  other  passengers,  in 


a  steam  launch,  and  she  embarked  on  board  the  Vega  at 
Diamond  Harbour  or  thereabouts,  some  hours'  run  from 
Calcutta.  I  was  the  bearer  of  a  letter  to  Mr.  Egliuton. 
It  was  given  to  me  for  him  by  Mrs.  Gordon,  I  think,  but 
I  won't  be  positive,  and  of  course  I  do  not  know  by 
whom  it  was  written.  I  gave  it  to  Mr.  Eglinton,  who  was 
playing  a  rubber  in  the  smoking-room  when  we  arrived 


208  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

at  the  ship.  I  took  leave  of  him,  and  have  never  seen 
him  since.  I  had  known  Mr.  Eglinton ;  he  was  in  the 
habit,  when  in  Calcutta,  of  giving  exhibitions  of  his 
powers  at  private  houses  for  a  fee.  He  generally  dined 
at  the  house,  and  the  company  afterwards  adjourned  to 
a  darkened  room,  where  musical-boxes  played  and  tam- 
bourines were  thumped  by,  as  it  was  said,  mysterious 
agencies.  He  came  to  our  house  in  this  way,  but  nothing 
occurred.  I  think  he  considered  it  a  failure. 
Mr.  Sinnett  we  do  not  know. 

I  am,  yours  faithfully, 

L.  P.  DELVES  BROUGHTON. 

Mrs.  Broughton  says  in  her  letter  (October  24, 1885) : 
"  When  Mr.  Eglinton  brought  me  the  envelope  it  had 
one  cross  upon  it,  and  I  said  in  a  vague  way, '  Let  me  see, 
how  shall  I  mark  it  ? '  whereupon  Mr.  Eglinton  promptly 
proposed  I  should  make  a  second  cross  +  -\-  so, 
which  naturally  decided  me  not  to  do  so,  and  no  doubt 
in  this  consisted  '  the  bad  behaviour '  Mr.  Sinnett  spoke 
to  you  of.  As  Mr.  Eglinton  found  occasion  to  open  the 
envelope  I  had  marked,  it  seems  singular  he  should  not 
have  found  it  worth  while  to  tell  me  he  had  done  so.  He 
made  an  unfortunate  mistake  in  referring  the  matter  to 
me  at  all,  as  he  did  not  find  me  the  pliable  being  he  ex- 
pected ! " 

Mrs.  Broughton  was  travelling  to  London  with  friends, 
—  Mr.  and  Mrs.  W.  K.  Eddis  and  Mr.  A.  Wilson.  Letters 
from  these  gentlemen  were  enclosed  to  me  by  the  Brough- 
tons.  They  were  elicited  by  my  report  to  them  of  an 
explanation  sent  me  by  my  friend  Mrs.  Caroline  Gor- 
don, a  devout  Spiritualist,  who  before  her  husband  (an 
officer)  was  transferred  to  Calcutta  attended  my  chapel 


EGLINTON'S  ATTEMPTED  FRAUD      209 

in  London.  She  had  learned  from  Mr.  Eglinton  that 
after  the  envelope  was  marked  by  Mrs.  Broughton,  he  con- 
cluded to  enclose  a  note  to  Mme.  Blavatsky  in  it,  and  put 
the  contents  into  a  new  envelope ;  but  it  was  late  (why 
the  haste  ?)  and  he  could  not  find  Mrs.  Broughton,  so  he 
marked  the  envelope  himself !  Of  all  this,  however,  not 
a  word  was  heard  from  Eglinton  during  the  rest  of  the 
voyage,  —  not  even  when  he  was  held  up  to  ridicule  on 
the  Vega,  where  a  letter  was  brought  on  board  at  Graves- 
end  from  Mr.  Broughton  saying  that  the  envelope  had 
three  crosses  ;  for  the  matter  had  been  the  talk  of  all 
the  passengers.  That  Eglinton  had  not  in  any  mark  im- 
itated Mrs.  Broughton's  asterisk  Mrs.  Gordon  (sincere  as 
she  was  credulous)  ascribed  to  his  strange  ignorance  of 
test-conditions.  Eglinton  was  no  idiot.  Like  Mme.  Bla- 
vatsky he  was  an  actor,  and  I  was  told  that  in  Calcutta 
they  affected  contempt  of  each  other's  pretensions. 

"My  wife,"  writes  Mr.  Eddis,  "was  sitting  by  Mrs. 
Broughton  when  Eglinton  read  to  her  the  letter  he  was 
going  to  send  by  astral  means.  Both  noticed  at  the  time 
that  there  was  not  one  word  in  the  letter  which  might 
not  have  been  written  in  Calcutta  before  the  steamer 
started,  —  not  a  single  allusion  to  anything  which  had 
occurred  since  we  left  Colombo,  which  would  have  put 
suspicion  out  of  the  question."  These  ladies  were  too 
witty  to  point  out  to  the  Spiritualist  this  defect  in  his 
letter,  and  allowed  him  to  go  on  digging  the  pit  into 
which  he  and  Mme.  Blavatsky  fell. 

One  evening  at  a  dinner  company  at  the  Salisbury 
Hotel,  London,  where  Mr.  Sinnett  was  present,  I  asked 
him  how  he  could  explain  that  Blavatsky-Broughton  inci- 
dent. He  answered,  "  It  is  a  long  story,  but  I  can  say 
this  much :  Mrs.  Broughtou  behaved  very  badly." 


210  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

One  day  when  I  was  at  the  house  of  General  Pitt  Rivers 
in  London  "  Colonel "  Olcott  called.  The  Hon.  Mrs.  Pitt 
Rivers,  one  of  whose  sons  had  been  a  believer  in  Theoso- 
phy,  repeated  the  story  of  the  attempted  fraud  on  the 
Broughtons  and  asked  him  to  explain  it.  "  Colonel " 
Olcott  answered,  "  Your  question  implies  the  possibility 
of  a  collusion  between  the  Theosophists  of  India  and  Mr. 
Eglinton,  and  before  such  a  suggestion  I  am  dumb."  It 
was  the  best  —  indeed,  the  only  —  reply  that  could  be 
made,  and  Mrs.  Pitt  Rivers  tried  in  vain  to  get  any  other. 
But  the  evasions  of  Sinnett  and  Olcott  prove  the  truth  of 
what  Mme.  Blavatsky  said  in  a  letter  to  Mme.  Coulomb, 
when  the  latter  resolved  to  expose  her  tricks,  "  God  him- 
self cannot  take  out  of  my  hand  those  who  believe  in  me." 

That  Mme.  Blavatsky  without  beauty  or  wealth  should 
be  able  to  bind  men  to  her  proves  that  she  possessed  some 
of  those  "  occult "  qualities  in  which  Lord  Bacon  finds 
the  secret  of  success.  I  do  not  believe  that  she  was  char- 
acteristically crafty  or  shrewd.  Although  she  had  ex- 
hibited art  in  her  confession  to  me,  she  afterwards  made 
a  blunder  about  it  by  getting  a  premature  explanation 
printed  in  England.  I  had  not  reported  or  used  what  she 
said,  but  only  had  it  under  consideration  when  I  saw  it 
stated  in  some  paper,  on  her  authority,  that  the  answer 
she  gave  me  was  what  she  was  directed  by  her  "  Guru  " 
to  give !  She  was  imprudent  also  in  allowing  some  of 
the  earlier  signatures  of  the  chief  Mahatma,  as  "Kot- 
thume,"  to  remain  in  circulation  after  the  change  to 
"  Koothoomi."  One  of  her  young  disciples,  Mohini,  ex- 
hibited a  sort  of  book-mark  ("Kotthume")  once  given 
him  by  Mme.  Blavatsky  in  a  company  at  my  house  in 
Bedford  Park,  London,  and  unwittingly  confirmed  the 
belief  that  the  name  was  made  up  of  Olcott-Hume ;  the 


MME.   COULOMB'S  REVELATIONS       211 

change  to  "  Koothoomi "  having  been  made  as  a  better 
disguise  of  the  combination.  (Sir  William  Hunter  told  me 
in  Calcutta  that  in  either  form  the  name  is  outside  all 
analogies  of  any  language  ever  known  in  India.) 

I  repeat  my  conviction  that  Mme.  Blavatsky's  impos- 
tures were  not  for  the  purpose  of  getting  money.  At 
times  she  lavished  all  the  money  she  had  on  some  scheme 
to  amaze  a  distinguished  person  or  secure  an  influential 
follower. 

The  silent  woman  at  the  Adyar  table  was  Mme.  Cou- 
lomb, who  soon  after  made  the  fatal  revelations  concern- 
ing Mme.  Blavatsky's  tricks.  The  French  woman,  I  am 
now  certain,  was  resolved  that  if  any  attempt  to  impose 
on  me  were  made  she  would  warn  me.  She  had  already 
ceased  to  be  an  assistant,  and  it  is  possible  that  Mme. 
Blavatsky's  explanation  to  me,  that  her  mysterious  famil- 
iars had  just  forbidden  further  correspondence  through 
the  miraculous  cabinet,  was  due  to  Mme.  Coulomb's  with- 
drawal of  her  connivance.  The  awful  conflict  was  even 
then  going  on  in  secret,  and  I  did  not  suspect  the  extent 
of  Mme.  Blavatsky's  histrionic  powers  until  the  publi- 
cation of  her  letters  to  her  penitent  accomplice  revealed 
that  during  all  that  time  when  she  was  so  serenely  pre- 
siding at  her  table,  and  conversing  with  me  so  merrily, 
she  was  just  over  a  rumbling  volcano  threatening  every 
instant  to  burst  out  with  ruin  to  her  whole  empire  in 
India.  However,  it  is  more  probable  that  Mme.  Blavatsky 
would  not  in  any  case  have  attempted  to  convert  me ;  she 
must  have  heard  from  her  London  friends  that  I  was  so 
exacting  in  evidence,  about  all  such  wonders,  as  to  be 
a  hopeless  case.  What  she  really  wished  was,  I  think, 
to  forestall  the  ugly  reports  about  her  that  I  was  likely 
to  hear  in  Calcutta  and  Bombay,  and  by  her  personal 


212  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

cordiality  and  hospitalities  to  me  induce  me  to  talk  of  her 
in  a  friendly  way  among  our  mutual  friends  in  London. 
I  was  indeed  in  a  tolerant  spirit  towards  Spiritualism, 
having  found  so  many  excellent  people  who  were  made 
happy  by  it,  and  I  regarded  Theosophy  as  simply  Spirit- 
ualism in  a  fez. 

The  letters  written  by  Mme.  Blavatsky  to  Mme.  Cou- 
lomb to  persuade  her  or  to  threaten  her  silence  are  nu- 
merous and  unquestionably  genuine.  The  French  woman 
could  no  more  have  written  anything  in  them  than  she 
could  have  written  Browning's  "  Mr.  Sludge,  '  the  Medi- 
um,' "  and,  moreover,  the  originals  were  opened  to  public 
inspection  in  a  community  where  Mme.  Blavatsky's  pecul- 
iar handwriting  was  well  known.  It  is  due,  I  think,  Mme. 
Coulomb's  inability  to  have  them  printed  anywhere  except 
in  an  obscure  Madras  magazine,  that  the  strange  situation 
revealed  in  the  correspondence  has  not  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  some  novelist  or  playwright.  Every  sentence  in 
the  Blavatsky  letters  is  born  of  a  life-and-death  struggle. 
Her  alternate  wrath  and  soft  persuasiveness,  her  audacity 
and  her  ingenuity,  reveal  wonderful  powers,  and  remind 
me  of  the  ablest  subtlety  and  invective  I  have  ever  heard 
at  the  bar. 

I  received  from  Mme.  Coulomb  in  London  a  long  and 
piteous  letter  showing  that  the  publication  which  ended 
Mme.  Blavatsky's  thaumaturgy  in  India  had  a  terrible 
recoil  on  herself.  The  disclosure  she  made  was  certainly 
conscientious.  She  had  met  Mme.  Blavatsky  in  Cairo,  I 
think,  and  being  a  Catholic  was  easily  persuaded  that  the 
Theosophic  miracles  were  genuine.  She  and  her  husband 
invested  all  the  money  they  possessed,  —  a  considerable 
sum,  —  and  after  they  discovered  that  some  things  re- 
quested of  them  were  of  doubtful  honesty,  the  two  French 


A   REPULSIVE   SERMON  213 

people  had  no  means  at  all  of  recovering  their  money  or 
of  living  except  by  receiving  support  at  the  Theosophic 
headquarters.  Mme.  Coulomb  was  a  believer  in  super- 
naturalism  ;  she  naively  says  that  she  did  not  mind  very 
much  the  deceptions  worked  on  Hindus  because  they 
already  believed  such  miracles,  but  when  the  frauds  began 
to  impose  on  English  people  she  could  not  stand  it.1  The 
situation  was  thus  really  unique.  In  order  to  reveal  the 
whole  thing  and  publish  all  the  letters  that  Mme.  Bla- 
vatsky  had  written  to  her,  poor  Mme.  Coulomb  had  to 
confess  that  she  had  been  an  accomplice,  and  also  lose  all 
the  money  that  she  and  her  husband  had  invested  in  the 
concern.  She  was  thus  a  sort  of  martyr.  She  was  reduced 
to  pauperism,  for  I  do  not  believe  that  the  missionary 
magazine  which  published  the  letters  paid  her  even  a  pit- 
tance for  them ;  and  what  became  of  her  I  know  not. 

On  our  way  from  Madras  to  Calcutta  a  Sunday  morn- 
ing was  occupied  by  Mr.  Muller  of  Bristol,  who  had  gained 
celebrity  by  carrying  on  a  sort  of  religious  hospital  there 
which  he  claimed  was  supported  by  prayer  alone.  Miss 
Mary  Carpenter  and  Miss  Frances  Power  Cobbe  had  dis- 
covered the  imposture  of  that  claim,  which  indeed  all 
intelligent  people  well  knew,  the  scandal  being  that  so 
many  subscribers  lent  themselves  to  the  pious  fraud. 
Muller,  whom  I  had  some  curiosity  to  see,  preached  the 
most  repulsive  sermon  that  I  ever  heard.  His  theme  was 
the  blessing  of  those  whose  "sin  is  covered  "  (Ps.  xxxii,  1), 

1  In  her  letter  to  me  Mme.  Coulomb  bitterly  complains  of  a  gentleman 
•who  repaid  her  effort  to  save  him  from  a  deception  by  assisting  in  her 
ruin.  "  I  do  not  think  that  ever  since  the  world  began  there  has  been  an 
impostor  like  Madame  Blavatsky.  I  am  not  ashamed  to  be  called  a  The- 
osophist.  and  would  I  were  able  to  devote  my  time  to  it,  but  what  I  would 
like  very  much  would  be  to  tear  out  of  my  life  the  page  that  concerns  my 
life  with  Madame  Blavatsky." 


214  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

and  he  asserted  that  if  a  man  or  woman  were  only  believ- 
ers in  the  blood  of  Christ,  the  Almighty  did  not  see  their 
sins  at  all.  Whatever  crimes  or  villainies  they  had  done, 
they  were  entirely  hidden  under  the  name  of  Christ,  and 
the  all-seeing  eye  would  never  look  beyond  that  covering. 
After  this  sermon  I  was  conversing  on  deck  with  a  num- 
ber of  educated  Hindu  gentlemen  who  were  astounded 
that  any  preacher  could  talk  in  that  way.  There  were 
three  or  four  of  these  educated  Hindus,  and  they  were 
unanimous  in  the  opinion  that  if  any  such  doctrine  as 
that  were  really  to  get  into  the  mind  and  heart  of  any 
large  number  of  Hindus,  the  amount  of  crime  that  would 
ensue  would  be  unimaginable.  I  told  them  that  the  fruits 
of  such  preaching  were  already  visible  in  England,  but 
that  fortunately  very  few  preachers  could  be  found  even 
in  the  most  ignorant  conventicles  to  believe  such  stuff,  and 
that  the  masses  of  English  and  American  people  got  their 
morals  mainly  from  the  law  courts. 

To  those  who  like  myself  desire  to  preserve  and  con- 
tinue all  the  varieties  of  religion  in  their  own  structural 
development,  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  realize  the  extent  to 
which  the  literalism  of  missionaries  prevents  their  doing 
much  real  harm. 


CHAPTER  XI 

Calcutta  —  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  and  his  death  —  Jogendra  Chandra  Ghosh 
and  Positivism  —  Mozoomdar  and  Dr.  Tyndall  —  Exposition  —  Holy 
pictures  —  Miracle  plays  and  Hindu  theatres  —  Kalighat  festival  —  Sir 
William  Hunter  —  A  learned  fakir  —  Kali  —  Salvation  Army  —  Enter- 
tainment by  Prince  Furrok  Shah  —  Christian  errors  about  "  idols  "  —  A 
dream  interview  with  Kali. 

IKEACHED  Calcutta  just  in  time  to  be  present  at  the 
banquet  in  celebration  of  the  one  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  the  Royal  Asiatic  Society  of  Bengal.  Its  president, 
the  viceroy  (Marquis  of  Ripon),  was  a  Catholic.  The 
Catholics  often  secure  fraternal  relations  with  peoples  of 
dark  complexion  where  Protestants  fail.  The  viceroy  had 
already  shown  the  Catholic  spirit  by  a  disposition  to 
include  native  gentlemen  further  in  the  affairs  of  India, 
and  was  entertaining  mixed  colours  at  the  vice-regal  table. 
He  made  an  excellent  speech,  as  also  did  the  Hon.  Mr. 
Ilbert  and  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir)  William  W.  Hunter. 

On  my  way  from  Madras  I  travelled  with  the  Brahmo 
minister,  Protap  Chunder  Mozoomdar,  who  told  me  that 
I  would  find  their  chief,  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  much 
expanded  intellectually  since  he  was  in  London.  But  on 
arrival  at  the  wharf  we  learned  that  Sen  was  dead.  His 
followers  gave  vent  to  their  grief  in  utterances  rather 
startling.  A  disciple  in  "  New  Dispensation  "  wrote  that 
their  "  master  "  had  been  killed  by  "  the  poisonous  darts 
of  unbelief,  indifference,  and  disobedience  which  were 
repeatedly  levelled  against  him."  "Thus  the  light  that 
was  shining  in  darkness,  and  the  darkness  knew  it  not, 
was  suddenly  extinguished ;  thus  the  Son  of  God  had  been 


210  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

crucified  a  second  time,  though  in  a  novel  fashion,  but  no 
less  cruel  and  corrupt  than  the  first."  "  Have  we  called 
our  Master  the  Son  of  God?  Yes.  He  came  first  to 
show  us  the  Father,  and  now  he  came  again  to  show  us 
the  Mother."  All  this  shows  that  the  movement  of  Sen 
had  mingled  with  the  Hinduism,  toward  which  it  had  re- 
lapsed, Christian  modes  of  thought  and  expression.  One 
who  knew  him  intimately  declared  to  me  that  his  death 
was  an  unconscious  suicide ;  he  was  killed  by  Yoga.  This 
idea  of  spiritual  sanctification  and  absorption,  taking  the 
form  of  ecstatic  austerities,  reducing  the  food  necessary  to 
nourish  his  large  frame  and  sustain  his  labours,  resulted 
in  elephantiasis.  Mr.  Dall,  the  American  Unitarian  mis- 
sionary in  Calcutta,  who  loved  Sen,  told  me  that  the  scene 
at  his  death  was  very  painful.  When  he  (Dall)  entered 
the  room  a  devotee  sat  at  his  head  crying  in  a  mournful 
voice,  "  Hari,  Hari !  "  [name  of  Chaitanya's  "  Salvation 
Army"  god  centuries  ago].  His  son,  weeping  continu- 
ally, called  "  Baba,  Baba !  "  Sen's  mother  asked  mourn- 
fully, "  What  have  I  done,  that  thou  shouldst  suffer  such 
agony  ? "  The  dying  man  said  that  this  agony  was  the 
apparently  stern  face  of  his  Divine  Mother,  and  that  he 
saw  her  countenance  full  of  love  and  beauty.  A  Singing 
Apostle  sang  in  the  room  hymns  that  are  thus  translated : 

I.  If  possible,  O  beloved,  remove   this  cup,  yet  not 
my  will  but  thine  be  done.    In  this  dire  distress,  body, 
mind,  and   life  are  thine.    Do  with  them  as  Thou  wilt 
only ;  with  clasped  hands  I  ask  for  this  blessing,  —  Grant 
unto  me  peace,  patience,  and  strength. 

II.  In  the  darkness  of  peril,  Mother,  what  a  fi-ightf ul 
look  is  Thine.  The  body  trembles  at  that  terrible  counte- 
nance.   In  the  midst  of  the  dismal  ground  of  cremation 
Thou  seemest  to  be  dancing  in  the  armour  of  battle. 
Thy  intelligent  form,  deep  in  its  immensity,  appears  tinged 


KESHUB  CHUNDER  SEN 


THE   DIVINE   MOTHER  217 

with  blood.  But,  Mother,  in  thy  inward  nature  there  is  a 
deep  ocean  of  love  that  surges  constantly.  What  fear  then  ? 
Mother,  I  have  found  Thee  out,  —  Thou  art  that  Merci- 
ful, Infinite  Ocean  of  Love. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  in  this  second  hymn  the  picture 
of  Kali  dancing  that  terrible  dance  which  threatened  uni- 
versal destruction  which  Siva,  her  lord,  could  arrest  only 
by  casting  himself  beneath  her  feet.  One  can  hardly 
fail  to  appreciate  the  power  of  that  faith  which  had  found 
even  that  most  dreadful  image  the  mask  of  the  maternal 
spirit  in  the  universe. 

In  one  of  the  Brahmo  annuals  was  an  article  on  the 
"Divine  Mother  "  in  which  the  writer  expresses  his  belief 
that  Brahmos  ought  to  call  god  their  Mother  instead  of 
Father.  He  says :  "  The  Christian  Madonna  and  Hindu 
Amba  convey  all  that  is  holy."  Amba  is  now  a  general 
Hindustani  word  for  mother  but  it  is  also  the  name  of  a 
mythological  character.  She  was  the  reverse  of  that  which 
is  conveyed  in  the  term  mother.  She  was  disappointed  in 
her  affections,  and  retired  to  a  forest,  where  she  concen- 
trated all  her  heart  and  soul  into  prayer  for  one  thing. 
That  was  that  she  might  obtain  revenge  on  the  king  who 
had  been  the  means  of  her  disappointment.  Siva,  god  of 
destruction,  heard  her ;  but  he  could  not  grant  her  prayer 
so  long  as  she  was  a  woman.  She  ascended  the  pile,  was 
burned,  an$  born  again  as  a  man.  In  that  form  revenge 
was  obtained  ;  the  author  of  her  misfortune  was  pierced 
with  arrows.1  It  seems  thus  that  the  Madonna  carried 
to  India  by  the  early  missionaries  had  gradually  become 
associated  with  fierce  Kali,  who  is  at  least  better  than  the 

1  Amba  means  mango,  in  the  dictionaries,  and  it  seems  that  this  curious 
myth  of  the  vindictive  woman  turned  man  was  of  onomatopoetic  origin : 
ambya.  the  young  mango,  is  feminine  ;  am,  the  full-grown  mango,  is  mas- 
culine. 


218  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

masculinized  Amba.  It  is  a  necessity  of  Theism  to  see 
Evil  as  a  mask  of  Good,  but  it  is  not  pleasant  to  find  the 
Madonna  in  such  company,  as  she  is  almost  the  only  divine 
being  of  human  imagination  absolutely  without  any  frown 
at  all. 

The  Brahmo  Somaj  was  indeed  not  very  different  from 
early  Christian  Unitarianism.  That  heresy,  however,  was 
developed  among  learned  and  aristocratic  people  in  Eng- 
land and  America  who  could  have  no  conception  of  the 
ascetic  ideas  associated  with  piety  among  the  poor  Hindus. 
Indeed,  I  well  remember  that  after  ministering  to  the 
humble  Methodists  in  Maryland  I  was  rather  shocked,  on 
joining  the  Unitarians  in  Boston  and  Cambridge,  to  find 
them  so  luxurious.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  when  he  came 
to  London,  suffered  chiefly  by  the  grand  fetes  given  to 
him.  He  told  me  that  at  the  first  fashionable  dinner 
party  every  dish  of  meat  seemed  to  him  a  cooked  baby. 

It  was  on  account  of  the  increasing  Christianism  of 
Keshub  Chunder  Sen  that  the  separate  society  was  formed, 
—  the  Sandharan  Brahmos.  I  had  some  conversation  with 
their  venerable  President  Deb.  He  said  that  the  society 
was  simply  theistic  and  rationalistic.  It  was  entirely  free 
from  ceremonies  and  superstitions,  and  in  sympathy  with 
all  progressive,  social,  and  ethical  movements. 

I  was  interested  at  finding  in  Calcutta  a  school  of  Posi- 
tivists  —  small  indeed,  but  consisting  of  able  men.  This 
society  was  led  by  Mr.  J.  S.  Cotton  of  the  Bengal  Civil 
Service,  well  known  to  the  Positivists  of  London,  and  es- 
pecially by  an  able  address  delivered  by  him  at  Dr.  Con- 
greve's  church  on  "  England  and  India."  I  have  related 
in  my  Autobiography  the  facts  of  Mr.  Cotton's  romantic 
marriage  at  Farringdon,  and  Tennyson's  interest  in  that 
affair.  By  his  favour  I  witnessed  the  ceremony  of  ad- 


A  POSITIVIST  SACRAMENT  219 

ministering  to  a  native  gentleman  the  Positivist  Sacra- 
ment of  Maturity.  (Maturity  is  the  age  of  forty-two.) 
The  gentleman  initiated  on  this  occasion  was  Jogendra 
Chandra  Ghosh.  Mr.  Ghosh  was  a  very  attractive  gen- 
tleman, as  well  as  a  scholar  and  a  writer  of  ability.  His 
contributions  to  the  "  Calcutta  Eeview  "  and  his  pamphlets 
show  mastery  of  the  English  language  and  comprehensive 
learning.  The  ceremony  was  held  in  a  room  of  the  British 
Indian  Association.  Sixteen  were  present  (all  men),  Mr. 
Cotton,  Mr.  Fordyce,  and  myself  being  the  only  white 
persons.  The  official  priest  of  the  Ghosh  family  was  con- 
spicuous. This  venerable  Brahman  was  alluded  to  by 
Mr.  Cotton  in  his  remarkable  address  on  this  the  first 
occasion  of  the  kind  that  had  occurred  in  India.  Mr. 
Cotton  stated  that  he  had  asked  and  received  from  Dr. 
Congreve  (London),  his  superior,  permission  to  admin- 
ister this  rite.  Positivism,  he  said,  was  in  sympathy  with 
respect  for  ancestral  ideas.  "We  come  not  to  send  a 
sword  upon  the  earth,  but  peace  :  and  so  the  ceremonial  of 
to-day  is  not  like  the  administration  of  a  Christian  sacra- 
ment, which  would  have  the  effect  of  alienating  you  [Mr. 
Ghosh]  from  the  past  and  from  all  the  surroundings  of 
your  ordinary  life."  After  Mr.  Ghosh  had  elaborately 
stated  his  reasons  for  adopting  Positivism,  his  Brahman 
priest  felicitated  him  cordially  in  almost  equally  good 
English.  I  had  read  Sir  Alfred  Lyall's  statement  of  the 
absorbing  power  of  Brahrnanism,  and  it  occurred  to  me 
that  a  Brahman  Positivism  might  some  day  arise,  and 
Auguste  Comte  be  another  avatar  of  Vishnu.  I  said  this 
to  the  eminent  Dr.  Rajendralala  Mitra,  who  reminded 
me  that  three  great  systems  of  the  East  were  fundamen- 
tally atheistic,  —  Buddhism,  Jainism,  and  the  Sankya 
philosophy.  The  beautiful  Jain  Temple  in  Calcutta, 


220  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

whose  lord  is  a  wide-awake  Buddha,  is  attended  by 
Brahmans,  one  of  whom,  who  showed  me  through  it, 
stopped  to  say  in  it  his  prayers.  In  answer  to  my  in- 
quiry he  said,  "  I  can  say  my  prayers  anywhere."  * 

The  Brahman  family  priests  are  largely  occupied  in 
performing  ceremonies  and  invocations  over  the  food,  etc., 
of  those  wealthy  enough  to  employ  them.  They  may  be 
seen  in  every  Rajah's  garden,  relieving  each  other's  watches 
in  the  unbroken  incantation  over  him  day  and  night.  I 
observed  from  my  window  a  priest  in  a  garden  engaged  in 
spiritual  exercises  over  dish  after  dish  brought  out  before 

1  From  time  to  time  I  corresponded  with  Mr.  Ghosh.  His  last  letter 
(April  8,  1901)  being,  as  I  think,  characteristic  of  the  type  of  thinker 
likely  to  be  developed  in  the  Indian  universities,  an  extract  is  subjoined :  — 

"I  send  you  herewith  a  pamphlet  of  mine  which  contains  a  reprint  of 
your  article  in  the  Glasgow  Herald, 

"  Your  letter  brought  me  sad  news :  the  death  of  Mrs.  Conway.  But  per- 
haps I  should  be  wise  not  to  recall  the  past  to  you  when  time  might  have 
brought  to  you  any  relief.  Only  we  oriental  people  are  so  tied  up  to 
home  that  home-matters  rivet  our  attention  very  much,  and  such  mis- 
fortunes excite  our  strongest  sympathies. 

"  I  am  ashamed  to  confess  that  I  have  not  read  your  English  edition  of 
Tom  Paine.  The  French  book  is  sealed  to  jne.  I  wonder  if  your  religious 
sentiments  have  turned  towards  Christian  or  farther  off  towards  freer 
thought.  I  continue  to  stand  fast  by  Comte's  teaching  and  my  own  Hindu 
antecedent.  I  ought  not  to  judge  between  Positivism,  Brahmoism,  and 
Hinduism.  I  am  not  in  favour  of  the  Indian  form  of  Christian  religion.  I 
am  afraid  Raja  Rammohun  Roy  was  swayed  a  little  too  much  by  his  Per- 
sian culture  and  his  personality,  or  rather  his  traditions ;  and  the  visible 
grandeur  of  Christian  domination  led  away  Keshub  Chunder  Sen.  Keshub, 
as  your  account  shows,  made  a  feeble  attempt  to  reconcile  his  opinions 
•with  Hinduism,  and  failed-  I  do  not  know  if  you  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Pandit  Iswar  Chandra  Vidya-Sagar.  If  you  did  you  would  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  judge  whether  Positivism  is  not  more  suited  for  reconstruction  of 
Hinduism  than  either  Christian  or  Parliamentary  Government. 

"  Your  kind  efforts  for  famine-stricken  India  are  very  touching  to  my 
mind.  But  as  the  Hindu  proverb  says,  it  is  like  drops  of  dew  for  a  sea  of 
salt  water." 


PROTAP    CHUNDER  MOZOOMDAR       221 

being  conveyed  to  the  breakfast-table,  —  perhaps  the 
origin  of  the  Briton's  grace  before  meat.  It  would  appear 
that  the  Brahman  Pandit  is  without  hostility  to  any  philo- 
sophical views  of  his  employer  that  do  not  affect  the  latter's 
relation  to  the  ceremonial  machinery  of  which  the  Pandit 
is  a  part. 

There  was  already  a  good  deal  of  speculation  in  Cal- 
cutta as  to  the  probable  successor  of  Keshub  Chunder  Sen. 
A  name  frequently  mentioned  was  that  of  Mozoomdar, 
well  known  in  England  and  America,  between  which  and 
India  he  seemed  to  oscillate.  Mozoomdar,  in  appearance 
the  typical  "  mild  Hindu,"  spoke  good  English,  and  like 
his  chief,  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  got  his  first  London 
hearing  in  my  chapel.  But  Mozoomdar  showed  towards 
us  afterwards  a  shyness  that  was  natural  though  rather 
droll :  although  ours  was  the  only  Unitarian  society  which 
had  renounced  the  Christian  name,  largely  because  it 
excluded  other  religions,  a  Brahmo  apostle  in  England 
needed  many  pulpits,  and  these  could  be  supplied  only 
by  Unitarian  Christians.  I  continued  on  friendly  terms 
personally  with  Mozoomdar.  He  was  really  in  spirit  no 
Hindu  at  all,  but  a  preacher  of  average  English  Unita- 
rian ism. 

Mozoomdar's  great  trouble  was  the  extent  to  which 
educated  Young  India,  in  casting  off  the  old  deities,  set 
nothing  in  their  place.  He  longed  to  obtain  in  England 
some  scientific  patronage  of  his  Theism,  and  requested  me 
to  arrange  for  him  an  interview  with  Tyndall,  my  memo- 
randum of  which  I  conclude  to  insert  here. 

The  interview  took  place  at  the  Royal  Institution.  We 
three  were  alone,  and  Mozoomdar,  after  alluding  to  the 
high  reputation  of  Tyndall  in  India,  said,  "  I  feel  the  need 
for  a  few  axioms  of  religion."  Tyndall  said,  "  Should  we 


222  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

call  them  by  such  a  precise  term  as  axiom  ?  "  Mozoomdar 
suggested  that  the  term  principles  might  be  substituted, 
adding  in  illustration,  "  Such  as  God  and  the  soul." 
Tyndall  in  his  gracious  way  said,  "  It  is  not  possible 
for  me  to  use  those  words  except  with  reservations  and 
explanations."  Mozoomdar  asked  in  what  form  possible 
those  ideas  or  principles  could  be  expressed.  Tyndall 
asked,  "  Is  any  form  possible  or  even  desirable?"  Mozoom- 
dar said,  "  In  India  we  do  stand  in  need  of  some  form  to 
embody  our  new  religious  ideas,  for  the  sake  of  morality. 
Young  men  abound  there  who  are  not  only  parting  with 
their  old  beliefs,  but  with  their  morality  at  the  same  time." 
Tyndall  expressed  a  hope  that  Mozoomdar  might  be  mis- 
taken, and  added,  "  I  cannot  believe  that  there  would  be 
any  such  result  if  these  young  men  were  properly  taught 
in  moral  principles."  Mozoomdar  acknowledged  that  they 
were  not,  properly  speaking,  taught  morality  at  all.  Tyn- 
dall said,  "I  cannot  believe  that  any  man  requires  the 
aid  of  theology  to  teach  him  that  an  honest  man  is  better 
than  a  rogue."  Tyndall  stated  that  certain  purely  moral 
passages  in  a  work  of  Fichte  had  wrought  an  important 
effect  in  himself  in  early  life,  and  he  did  not  deny  that 
sacred  books  might  stimulate  into  activity  the  higher 
principles  in  every  human  mind  and  heart  —  where  they 
always  exist  though  sometimes  latent  unless  influenced 
from  without.  Mozoomdar  said  with  emphasis,  "I  feel 
that  religion  must  conform  to  science."  Tyndall  rejoined, 
"  Such  religion  as  that  I  cannot  condemn,  but  the  reverse. 
In  true  religion  there  is  a  permanent  and  indestructible 
element ;  the  forms  may  frequently  have  to  be  abandoned, 
the  essence  never.  I  think  it  is  not  wise  to  mould  this 
fluid  element  into  form,  however  new.  They  who  see 
farthest  cannot  discern  the  ultimate  forms  into  which  this 


MOZOOMDAR'S  DEITY  223 

religious  sentiment  will  mould  itself."  On  hearing  this 
Mozoomdar  stretched  forth  his  hand  to  Tyndall,  who  cor- 
dially grasped  it. 

I  had  not  met  Mozoomdar  since  that  interview  (1874) 
until  we  travelled  together  from  Madras  to  Calcutta. 
We  had  a  good  deal  of  conversation,  but  could  not  reach 
any  kind  of  agreement  because  his  demand  was  for  a  de- 
monstrably  working,  mine  for  a  lovable,  deity.  He  wished 
to  clear  away  the  gods  and  goddesses  of  India  as  so  many 
idols,  but  who  was  responsible  for  the  ignorance  from 
which  they  grew  ?  And  what  was  his  own  one  Brahmo 
deity  but  all  of  those  nature-gods  consolidated  into  one, 
—  that  one  responsible  for  all  the  cruel  and  destructive 
forces  represented  by  Siva  and  Kali  ?  Once  he  said  to  me, 
"  Is  there  anything  at  all  that  you  reverence  ?  "  "  Yes," 
I  replied,  "  a  lovely  and  lovable  woman,  a  sweet  child,  a 
man  of  wisdom,  a  mind  consecrated  to  pure  reason,  a  true 
and  loving  heart."  Mozoomdar  tried  to  persuade  me  that 
all  these  beautiful  qualities  were  deep  in  the  heart  of  his 
dynamic,  universal,  omnipotent  deity  ;  I  could  not  see 
love  in  cancers,  Indian  famines,  etc.,  but  was  as  tender 
as  I  could  be  with  the  faith  of  this  Hindu  so  pathetically 
anxious  to  build  up  a  new  religion  for  his  race.1 

The  great  Exposition  at  Calcutta  was  open,  and  Sir 
William  Hunter,  the  director,  gave  me  facilities  for  see- 
ing it,  even  including  me  among  the  few  men  admitted  on 
the  day  reserved  for  Hindu  ladies.  Among  these  ladies 
were  about  a  dozen  "  converts  "  belonging  to  a  Christian 
Home  in  Calcutta.  They  had  a  costume  of  their  own,  and 
grouped  themselves  apart.  Their  unconverted  sisters  in 

1  P.  C.  Mozoomdar  did  preach  in  Keshnb  Chunder  Sen's  pulpit,  with 
what  success  I  know  not.  Since  thia  volume  was  in  press  I  have  heard  of 
his  recent  death. 


224  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

passing  by  paused  to  gaze  on  the  Christians  with  serious 
curiosity,  and  always  with  entire  respect.  The  uniform 
of  the  converts  —  all  fine  looking  —  was  a  snowy  white 
garment  flowing  from  the  neck,  and  a  sort  of  long  sash 
folding  around  the  waist  and  also  below  it  to  the  feet. 
The  garment,  though  perhaps  devised  for  modesty,  was 
semi-transparent  above  the  waist,  and  impressed  me  as 
less  refined  than  the  unconscious  and  childlike  exposures 
of  the  unconverted  ladies  in  their  varied  draperies.  These 
multitudes  streaming  along  the  corridors  and  from  room 
to  room  appeared  so  full  of  sunshine  and  mirth  that  they 
seemed  to  be  grown-up  children ;  they  were  found  of  play- 
ing little  tricks  on  each  other  as  they  marched  along, 
such  as  reaching  over  the  shoulders  before  them  to  give  a 
slight  pull  at  the  hair  or  clothing  of  some  acquaintance, 
then  gazing  innocently  away,  and  when  detected  breaking 
into  laughter  that  was  never  loud  but  shook  the  entire 
form.  It  appeared  to  me  that  never  in  England  or  Amer- 
ica or  Australia  had  I  seen  so  many  happy  female  faces 
as  in  that  Exposition  where  they  were  gathered  from  many 
regions. 

In  the  Indian  section  four  boys  were  weaving  a  carpet, 
whose  colours  were  shuttled  musically.  A  man  sat  in  front 
with  a  pattern  in  his  hand,  chanting  each  colour  to  be 
inserted.  The  boys  responded  in  chorus,  each  with  the 
colour  he  had  to  touch,  and  the  little  shuttles  were  selected 
deftly  enough.  This  was  a  pretty  instance  of  verse  sweet- 
ening toil,  and  seemed  to  unite  the  beauty  wrought  by 
man  with  that  which  clothes  the  butterfly  and  flower. 

In  the  Calcutta  section  stood  a  group  of  life-sized  Cath- 
olic images,  and  one  morning  I  was  moved  to  some  reflec- 
tions by  seeing  a  Hindu,  duster  in  hand,  trying  to  clean 
these  sacred  figures.  He  evidently  found  it  difficult.  The 


IN  A  CALCUTTA   PRINT-SHOP  225 

groups  of  outlandish  people  crowding  the  Exposition  were 
particularly  attracted  by  these  Christian  images  in  blue 
and  gold  with  their  brass  glories. 

It  was  a  good  place  for  ethnographical  observations. 
There  were  a  good  many  living  representatives  of  tribes, 
but  most  of  them  were  shown  in  life-sized  models.  There 
had  been  some  difficulty  in  obtaining  these  models,  and 
the  effort  to  get  an  Aka  for  modelling  had  brought  on 
a  small  war.  A  Babu  was  sent  into  the  neighbourhood  of 
Assar  to  find  a  typical  Aka,  but  the  Aka  locked  him  up, 
and  it  required  a  regiment  and  a  skirmish  to  recover  him. 

I  gathered  from  the  print-shops  of  Calcutta  several 
popular  pictures,  —  highly  coloured,  —  among  them  the 
Goddess  of  Learning,  who,  with  her  Greek  robe  and  pile 
of  books,  resembles  some  mediaeval  personifications  of 
Grammar.  Mahadar,  bearing  Sati  on  his  shoulder,  —  a 
giant  with  flowing  beard  and  hair,  toiling,  staff  in  hand, 
between  steep  and  rugged  cliffs,  —  is  a  fair  image  of  St. 
Christopher.  Jagadhatri,  the  Universal  Nurse,  seated  on 
her  lion,  recalls  Una.  Devaka,  father  of  Krishna,  flying 
with  the  new-born  babe  into  the  wilderness  to  escape  King 
Kansa,  is  notable  for  the  beautiful  and  exquisitely-haloed 
head  of  the  child,  which  seems  to  have  come  from  an  old 
Italian  canvas.  But  I  shall  have  more  to  say  of  pictures 
presently. 

On  the  curtain  of  one  of  the  Hindu  theatres  was  a 
picture  apparently  of  Adam  and  Eve.  It  was  in  a  Pars! 
theatre,  and  would  therefore  represent  the  old  Persian 
legends  of  the  first  parents  of  mankind,  Meschia  and 
Meschiane.  In  India  "Adam"  is  now  the  ancient  name 
of  the  first  man ;  but  in  the  Sanskrit  it  was  Adima,  "  the 
first,"  while  the  Hebrew  Adam  means  "  red  earth."  It  is 
noteworthy  that  these  sacred  personages  are  often  pic- 


226  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

tured  very  fair,  and  generally  with  different  complexions 
from  those  of  the  present  oriental  races.  The  houris  of 
the  Moslem  Paradise  are  so  called,  not,  as  some  suppose, 
because  they  are  dark-eyed,  but  because  they  are  fair. 

The  theatres  of  India  are  of  indigenous  growth,  and  no 
doubt  were  originally  formed  to  represent  deeds  of  the 
heroes  and  divinities  that  still  chiefly  figure  on  its  stage. 
Several  plays  of  Shakespeare  have  been  translated  into 
Sinhalese,  and  in  1884  a  company  was  rehearsing  them 
in  Colombo.  But  the  old  Star  Theatre  in  Calcutta  was 
occupied  with  Hindu  Miracle  Plays.  The  audience  at  first 
appears  to  be  made  up  entirely  of  men,  but  presently  one 
sees  what  seems  to  be  a  faded  tapestry  surrounding  the 
amphitheatre ;  the  figures,  however,  occasionally  move, 
and  are  then  discovered  to  be  women.  They  are  seated  be- 
hind thinnest  gauze,  and  are  iri  just  the  same  upper  rows, 
separate  from  men,  that  women  occupied  in  the  ancient 
Greek  theatre  (Athenaeus,  xii,  534). 

The  first  play  I  saw  was  the  combat  of  the  hero  Rama 
with  the  demon  Ravana.  (Ravana  was  a  king  of  Ceylon 
who  was  demonized  in  India,  and  popularly  given  many 
heads,  just  as  the  Czar  is  in  England,  which  sees  his  mi- 
raculous ubiquity  in  every  villainy  that  occurs  through- 
out Russia!)  The  performance  opened  with  a  chorus  of 
nymphs  beautifully  draped,  marching  to  and  fro,  singing 
an  ancient  ballad  in  praise  of  the  hero.  The  terrible  god- 
dess Kali  was  personated  by  a  blackened  man.  She  pro- 
mises Ravana,  the  demon  king  of  Lanka  (Ceylon),  her 
protection.  Vibhi  Shana,  younger  brother  of  Ravana, 
warns  the  demon  of  his  fate.  Ravana  is  heavily  whiskered 
and  ferocious,  though  he  takes  the  hero's  side  in  the  end. 
We  pass  to  the  forest  where  Rama  invokes  the  goddess 
Durga.  The  nymphs  sing  around  him  in  the  forest.  The 


A   HINDU   MIRACLE  PLAY  227 

sensational  scene  is  where  Kama  is  about  to  tear  out  his 
eye  and  offer  it  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  goddess.  Durga,  thus 
far  a  wooden  image,  starts  forward,  prevents  this  sacrifice, 
and  promises  to  protect  Rama's  wife,  Sita,  whom  Ravana 
has  abducted  and  placed  with  his  daughter  in-law. 

The  conflict  is  for  the  rescue  of  Sita.  When  Ravana 
approaches,  his  daughter-in-law  of  course  hides.  A  mes- 
senger warns  Ravana  of  his  peril.  Ravana  boasts  that  he 
has  a  magic  arrow,  and  cannot  be  defeated.  The  mon- 
key god,  however,  in  disguise  of  a  holy  fakir,  manages 
to  obtain  this  arrow  from  Ravana's  wife.  The  combat 
between  the  hero  and  the  demon  caused  excitement  in  the 
audience,  but  it  was  indicated  only  by  low  vocal  utterances. 
When  Ravana  is  dying  in  the  forest  his  conqueror  Rama 
and  others  ask  him  questions.  They  approach  and  say  he 
has  peculiar  and  occult  knowledge,  being  a  very  aged  king, 
and  therefore  will  be  able  to  instruct  the  youthful  Rama 
for  his  royal  career.  Ravana  replies  to  him :  "  Thou  art 
the  incarnation  of  God,  and  canst  not  learn  anything  of 
me ;  yet  will  I  say  to  thee,  '  Be  quick  to  do  what  is  good, 
slow  to  do  what  is  evil.'  All  the  good  things  I  meant 
to  do  are  now  unavailing;  I  meant  to  build  a  stairway 
to  heaven,  to  make  the  salt  ocean  sweet."  The  wife  of 
Ravana  mourns  over  him  and  cries,  "  After  I  have  wor- 
shipped all  the  gods  and  goddesses  so  long,  this  is  the 
result."  Her  adopted  son  consoles  her  by  saying  that 
since  Ravana  was  killed  by  Rama,  a  divine  being,  he  must 
necessarily  go  to  Indra's  paradise.  Rama  then  tells  her  that 
her  husband  will  never  die.  Then  we  have  the  exciting 
episode  in  which  Sita,  suspected  by  Rama,  casts  herself 
into  the  fire.  Rama,  raving  in  his  anguish,  is  about  to  kill 
himself,  when  Agni,  god  of  fire,  withdraws  the  flames,  and 
Sita  rises  in  pure  apotheosis ;  after  which  the  orchestra 


228  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

plays  "  God  save  the  Queen,"  and  the  audience  silently 
retires. 

In  the  course  of  this  play  an  incident  occurred  not  set 
down  on  the  programme.  The  Hon.  Mr.  Ilbert  and  a 
Babu  who  interpreted  the  play  (Hindustani)  for  me  were, 
with  myself,  the  only  occupants  of  the  dress-circle.  The 
manager  of  the  theatre  came  up  during  an  entr'acte  and 
invited  us  behind  the  scenes.  We  readily  accepted,  when 
Mr.  Ilbert,  who  supposed  himself  incognito,  suddenly 
found  himself  the  object  of  a  patriotic  demonstration.  The 
Hindus  had  recognized  the  author  of  the  famous  Ilbert 
Bill  for  enlarging  the  rights  of  natives,  and  now  Kama, 
Havana,  their  retinues,  and  even  their  wives,  came  forward 
and  prostrated  themselves  before  the  astonished  states- 
man. The  nymphs  with  the  chorus  stood  round  and  made 
profound  obeisance,  and  the  god  Angi  said  in  good  English, 
"  See,  sir,  even  our  women,  ignorant  as  they  are,  have  been 
moved  with  admiration  of  you,  for  your  justice  to  our  race, 
and  desire  to  pay  you  homage."  Mr.  Ilbert,  abashed  at  this 
unexpected  scene,  after  a  brief  acknowledgment,  introduced 
me  to  the  group  in  a  flattering  way  as  the  compiler  of  an 
oriental  Anthology,  whereupon  the  manager  exclaimed, 
"  This  is  Mr.  Ilbert's  friend,"  and  straightway  I  had  the 
honour  of  seeing  Agni,  Vibhi,  Kama,  and  Kavana  in  their 
splendour  and  all  the  epical  heroines  kneeling  on  the  floor 
before  me ! 

This  incident  behind  the  scenes  was  my  nearest  glimpse 
of  the  contemporary  world  in  the  Calcutta  theatre.  I  was 
presently  back  in  my  seat  near  the  women  seated  in  ancient 
Greek  fashion,  while  the  actors  just  now  kneeling  to  us, 
resuming  their  grandeur,  bore  me  back  to  poetic  visions  of 
primitive  man.  Having  before  got  the  tale  completely  in 
my  memory,  it  was  so  illuminated  by  the  Puranic  cos- 


THE  STAGE  A  MISSIONARY  229 

tumes,  the  preordained  movements  of  the  performers,  the 
miracles  that  seem  so  natural  at  a  million  years'  distance, 
that  I  found  myself  floating  familiarly  in  immemorial 
time.  I  was  present  at  the  birth  and  development  of 
deities  and  demons,  saw  them  take  the  shape  in  which  they 
could  engrave  themselves  indelibly  on  the  human  heart 
by  charming  or  terrifying  the  senses. 

Priesthoods  of  the  great  missionary  religions — Bud- 
dhism, Christianism,  Mohammedanism  —  account  for  the 
rapid  diffusion  of  their  systems  in  the  earth  by  claiming 
supernatural  interposition  and  favour.  This  is  really  a 
confession  that  no  new  religion  could  have  been  spread 
among  many  millions  in  many  nations  merely  by  sermons. 
The  miracles  undoubtedly  occurred,  but  it  was  on  the 
stage.  The  "  Miracle  Plays  "  are  so  named  with  naivete 
and  truth.  It  is  only  on  the  stage  that  demons  and  dragons 
are  securely  slain,  and  justice  prevails,  and  virtue  always 
triumphs  over  vice.  And  it  is  on  the  stage  that  a  great 
and  faultless  hero  can  be  developed  from  a  striking  per- 
sonality marching  to  the  martyrdom  where  crown  and 
halo  await  him. 

Paul  reminds  the  Galatians  (iii.  1)  that  the  execution 
of  Christ  had  been  set  forth  publicly  before  their  eyes, 
and  in  that  far  Asiatic  city,  peopled  from  different  races, 
it  is  probable  that  a  Buddhist  theatre  was  used  for  the 
scene,  —  these  two  religions  not  having  been  enemies  in 
those  simple  days. 

In  the  thirteenth  Tibetan  tale  translated  by  Anton  von 
Schiefner  from  the  Kah-Gyur,  and  by  W.  R.  S.  Ralston 
from  the  German  (Triibner's  Oriental  Series),  there  is  a 
complete  account  of  the  play  in  which  the  Buddha  saga 
was  embodied,  composed  by  an  actor  to  please  believers 
and  "  convert  unbelievers."  "  He  pitched  a  booth  in  Raha- 


230  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

griga  on  the  clay  when  the  festival  of  the  Nagarajas  Girika 
and  Sundara  was  celebrated,  and  sounded  a  drum.  And 
when  a  great  crowd  had  collected  he  exhibited  in  a  drama 
the  above-mentioned  in  the  life  of  Bhagavant  (Buddha) 
in  harmony  with  the  Abhinishkramanasutra.  Thereby  the 
performers  and  the  assembled  crowds  were  confirmed  in 
the  faith.  And  they  uttered  sounds  of  approval,  and  he 
made  a  large  profit."  But  this  actor,  in  order  to  impress 
the  unbelievers,  had  made  up  two  of  his  performers  in  the 
guise  of  eminent  Bhikshus, — holy  personages  of  rank, — 
adding  a  little  fan,  and  these,  angry  at  being  taken  off  by 
the  actor,  put  up  a  booth  near  his  and  performed  a  grander 
Bodisat  play.  As  they  were  in  disguise  the  actor  followed 
them,  and  one  turned  on  him  and  said,  "  You  wretch,  who 
live  by  our  art !  as  you  have  brought  us  on  to  the  stage 
we  will  go  to  every  place  where  you  perform,  and  we  will 
annoy  you."  The  actor  craved  pardon,  because  he  got  his 
living  by  his  performance,  and  received  it  by  giving  up 
the  whole  of  his  receipts  to  the  Bhikshus. 

The  words  of  the  Bhikshu,  "  our  art,"  are  significant. 
It  appears  that  the  offence  was  in  a  performance  of  the 
Buddhist  Miracle  Play  by  an  unsanctified  person  for 
personal  profit.  Anything  received  by  a  Bhikshu  was 
supposed  to  go  to  the  holy  brotherhood,  —  which  in  the 
Tibetan  tale  consisted  of  twelve. 

At  the  Parsi  theatres  all  the  female  parts  are  acted  by 
men,  and  it  is  wonderful  how  feminine  they  make  them- 
selves. Over  the  drop  scene  in  the  Parsi  theatre  at  Cal- 
cutta there  was  a  portrait  in  which  I  was  much  interested, 
and  found  to  my  astonishment  that  it  was  meant  for  Shake- 
speare. The  play  was  the  opera  of  "  Nairung-Ishk."  The 
language  used  was  Ghuzerati.  It  is  a  tale  of  apparently 
Persian-Mohammedan  origin,  and  in  it  I  discovered  a  re- 


A  PARSl  OPERA  231 

semblance  to  our  European  legend  of  the  mother  of 
Charlemagne.  In  the  first  scene  we  see  two  very  young 
people  —  a  sister  and  a  brother — who  bewail  their  cruel 
treatment  at  the  hands  of  their  royal  stepmother.  The 
stepmother  enters,  and  is  angry  at  seeing  them  together. 
This  stepmother  has  a  son  of  her  own.  She  intends  to  kill 
the  stepson,  heir  to  her  husband's  throne,  and  have  h6r 
own  son  marry  the  girl,  in  defiance  of  custom.  The  girl, 
however,  is  firm  in  her  determination  to  resist  this.  The 
two  young  people  are  next  nearly  starved,  and  repair  to  the 
tomb  of  their  mother.  There  they  tell  her  what  they  have 
to  suffer,  and  long  to  rest  beside  her.  The  spirit  of  the 
mother  rises  out  of  her  tomb  and  says  to  them,  "  Be  patient, 
do  not  grieve  so  much.  Attend  to  what  I  say.  The  tree  that 
grows  beside  my  tomb  has  on  it  fruit,  which  you  must  eat 
morning  and  evening."  They  eat  this  fruit  and  continually 
eat  it.  The  stepmother,  seeing  that  they  do  not  starve, 
makes  her  son  act  as  a  spy  upon  their  movements.  He  re- 
ports how  they  are  obtaining  food.  The  stepmother  then 
pretends  illness,  and  tells  her  husband  that  an  astrologer 
declares  she  can  be  cured  only  by  the  root  of  a  tree  near 
the  tomb  of  his  former  wife.  The  king,  about  to  leave  for 
the  wars,  consents  that  the  tree  should  be  pulled  up  by  the 
roots.  When  the  king  has  gone,  the  stepmother  orders  a 
slave  to  take  the  two  young  people  into  the  jungle  and  slay 
them.  When  the  slave  has  taken  them  into  the  jungle  he 
reveals  to  them  his  errand,  and  says  he  will  not  slay  those 
whom  he  has  attended  since  their  infancy.  They  implore 
him  to  carry  out  his  instructions,  their  lives  being  wretched. 
The  slave  says,  "  I  will  never  kill  you ;  I  have  eaten  salt 
with  you  ;  if  you  please  you  may  kill  me.  I  have  an  obe- 
dient heart,  and  if  you  will,  we  will  fly  together  and  never 
return."  It  is  arranged,  however,  that  he  shall  return  and 


232  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

report  their  death,  and  in  parting  he  says,  "  Happiness  is 
not  perpetual ;  nor  unhappiness.  Be  patient."  When  he 
has  left  them,  the  two  kneel  and  pray,  concluding  with 
the  words,  "  Almighty,  we  are  faithful  to  thee !  "  As 
they  wander  they  become  hungry.  The  brother  sees  some 
animal,  and  proposes  to  kill  it,  but  his  sister  says,  "  We 
must  not  kill."  He  replies,  "  Yes,  for  it  is  sent  by  God 
in  answer  to  our  prayer."  He  fires  at  the  animal,  and  kills 
it,  but  they  have  no  means  of  cooking.  He  goes  to  beg 
a  little  fire.  The  sister  remains  alone.  She  bemoans  the 
fate  of  the  animal.  "  Poor  deer,  your  fate  brought  you 
near  us,  and  you  are  dead.  In  the  same  way  all  will  die." 
As  she  sings  this  a  serpent  bites  her  and  she  falls  sense- 
less. While  she  is  in  this  condition  robbers  enter  the  for- 
est, and  rob  her  of  her  jewels ;  but  seeing  that  she  is  a 
beauty  who  would  bring  a  good  price,  they  desire  to  restore 
her.  One  of  them  has  a  charm  from  a  serpent's  head,  and 
with  it  cures  her.  She  rises  with  the  words,  "  Why  did 
you  waken  me  from  sleep  ?  "  They  tell  her  what  has  hap- 
pened. She  asks  for  her  brother ;  they  tell  her  that  he  is 
near  by  at  a  house,  and  they  will  guide  her  to  him.  When 
she  has  gone,  her  brother  returns,  deploring  that  he  had 
missed  the  road.  At  this  moment  the  people  from  the 
city  of  the  Yaman  enter,  and  declare  that  he  must  be  their 
king.  Whenever  the  king  dies,  the  stranger  that  first  arrives 
must  be  made  king.  They  bear  him  off  by  force,  he  calling 
for  his  sister.  She  meanwhile  is  a  prisoner.  One  of  the 
robbers  falls  in  love  with  her,  but  she  rejects  him.  Whilst 
they  are  together,  the  other  robbers  enter,  showing  their 
suspicion  of  their  comrade's  good  faith,  which  he  allays 
by  declaring  she  must  be  sold.  She  is  sold  in  the  city  (for 
5000  rupees)  to  a  hag,  who  takes  her  to  a  disreputable 
house,  where  she  is  compelled  to  sing  for  money.  Whilst 


"THE   COURT  OF  INDRA"  233 

the  brother,  now  king  of  Yaman,  is  sorrowfully  seeking 
his  sister,  her  beauty  has  attracted  the  son  of  the  prime 
minister  ;  he  in  turn  purchases  her  from  the  hag.  She  tells 
him  her  sad  story,  and  pleads  with  him  against  disgrace, 
when  he  informs  her  he  had  visited  the  house  only  because 
he  had  discovered  that  an  innocent  person  was  a  prisoner 
there.  The  father  of  this  virtuous  youth  will  not  believe 
her  story ;  but  its  truth  is  brought  out,  and  the  sister  finds 
at  once  a  noble  husband  and  a  royal  brother. 

Another  play  that  I  saw  in  India  was  called  "  Indra 
Sabha,"  that  is,  "The  Court  of  Indra."  The  story  is 
this.  One  day  a  celestial  nymph  of  Indra's  court  went  out 
to  walk,  and  saw  lying  on  a  seat  a  handsome  prince.  She 
falls  in  love  with  him,  and  summoning  a  demon  bids  him 
bring  to  her  abode  both  the  prince  and  the  garden  seat 
on  which  he  slept.  On  the  prince's  awakening  she  con- 
fesses her  love,  and  for  a  time  all  bids  fair  to  go  on  hap- 
pily, but  a  demon  informs  Indra  of  this  intrigue.  The 
prince  and  the  nymph  are  brought  before  the  king  of 
gods  (Indra),  who  orders  the  prince  to  be  thrown  into  a 
well-prison,  and  the  fairy  to  be  expelled  from  court. 
Bewailing  her  lover  she  wanders  through  Persia  and  Hin- 
dustan in  the  guise  of  a  hermit.  In  this  disguise  she  at 
length  returns  to  Indra's  court.  She  exerts  her  powers 
of  sweet  song.  Indra  listens,  is  charmed,  and  orders  the 
singer  to  be  brought  before  him.  On  her  repeating  the 
song,  he  promises  to  grant  her  any  favour  she  may  ask. 
She  thereupon  throws  off  her  yogi  garment  and  begs  for 
the  release  of  her  lover,  the  prince,  which  is  granted.  The 
charm  in  this  piece  was  chiefly  in  the  singing  and  dancing 
of  the  nymphs. 

At  a  Parsi  theatre  I  saw  a  modern  piece,  —  apparently 
a  satire  upon  infant  marriages.  As  the  Parsis  have  long 


234  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

followed  the  same  custom,  I  infer  that  the  play  must  have 
been  written  by  one  of  the  reformers  who  had  caused  a 
schism  by  demanding  the  release  of  woman  from  the  or- 
deals to  which  she  is  subjected  by  Hinduism,  and  also  the 
abolition  of  infant  marriages.  In  this  amusing  little  play 
a  wealthy  youth  who  had  been  married  to  a  distinguished 
child  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  fascinating  woman. 
Among  other  things  she  dictates  to  him  an  exceedingly 
comical  letter  to  his  wife,  stating  that  he  was  having  a 
very  pleasant  entertainment  where  he  was,  but  would  come 
to  her  again  when  he  got  tired. 

On  inquiring  at  Calcutta  about  the  family  of  the  famous 
Rammohun  Roy,  founder  of  Brahmoism  (Theism)  in  In- 
dia, whose  mission  to  England  fifty  years  before  was  an 
event  of  historic  importance,  I  learned  that  he  was  repre- 
sented by  a  grandson,  Hurreinihun  Roy,  a  wealthy  gentle- 
man interested  chiefly  in  a  menagerie  he  had  established 
on  his  estate,  along  with  a  circus  !  Of  course  I  went  out 
to  the  circus,  and  at  the  entrance  found  a  programme 
printed  in  the  best  style  of  "  English  as  she  is  spoke  :  " 

"  Look !  Look  !  !  Look  ! ! !  The  unprecedented  scene  in 
Bengal.  The  Blossoming  Rose,  or  the  Daughter  of  Flowers. 
The  Fairy  Knohumkumni.  The  most  attractive  Young 
Equestrian  in  the  New  and  Wonderful  feats  on  the  Pad 
Horse.  A  Boy  of  five  years  is  the  most  attraction !  " 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  primary  gymnastic  school  in 
London  could  show  better  acrobatic  feats,  and  the  horse- 
riding  was  comically  commonplace.  The  manager  of  the 
show,  seeing  me  taking  notes,  came  to  me  and  apologized 
for  the  spectacle,  saying  that  it  was  entirely  by  amateurs. 
On  payment  of  a  few  additional  pice  I  visited  the  me- 
nagerie, where  there  was  a  brass  band  that  had  an  accom- 
paniment for  each  particular  cry  or  growl  of  the  animals. 


KALIGHAT  235 

I  did  not  meet  the  grandson  of  Rammohun  Roy,  to  my  re- 
gret, for  I  might  have  got  some  memoranda  on  "  heredity  " 
for  my  friend  Sir  Francis  Galton.  But  after  all,  is  it  not 
natural  that  the  progeny  of  infant  marriages  should  often 
remain  infants  ? 

On  the  morning  of  January  18, 1884, 1  sat  for  a  time  in 
the  Council  Chamber  of  the  Indian  Empress  observing  the 
large-headed  viceroy  sitting  beneath  a  portrait  of  Warren 
Hastings,  and  remarking  other  good  heads  surrounded  by 
portraits  representing  the  continuity  of  British  rule  in 
India.  After  a  time  the  ablest  man  among  them,  and  the 
man  best  informed  on  Indian  affairs,  Sir  William  Hunter, 
was  ready  to  accompany  me  on  an  appointed  expedition. 
This  was  to  Kalighat,  the  ancient  and  original  shrine  of 
the  goddess  Kali,  after  whom  Calcutta  is  named.  It  was 
the  great  annual  festival  of  the  Hooghly  River,  whose 
sanctity  is  associated  with  a  divine  being  born  of  a  hu- 
man virgin. 

It  was  hardly  an  hour's  drive  from  Calcutta  to  Kalighat, 
but  on  arrival  the  Council  of  Statesmen  and  Scholars  in 
their  splendid  halls  were  as  if  removed  to  an  inconceiv- 
able distance.  The  city  of  palaces  seemed  a  thousand 
years  away  from  this  city  of  huts  (sprung  up,  however, 
within  a  few  days).  These  huts,  massed  together,  were 
made  of  mud,  leaves,  grass,  and  amid  them  thousands  of 
men,  women,  and  children  moved  without  rest.  Are  these 
huts  enlarged  ant-hills,  and  these  hurrying  swarms  huge 
termites  ?  But  no ;  in  a  colony  of  ants  all  seem  busy  at 
something  real  —  they  are  carrying  loads  or  fighting  an- 
other colony.  But  all  this  swarming  and  hurry  of  dark 
human  forms  seem  aimless.  No  work  is  going  on  —  none, 
that  is,  save  an  enterprising  mendicancy,  active  and  per- 
sistent enough  to  have  secured  wealth  in  other  lines  of 


236  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

business;  but  everybody  is  on  the  move,  all  are  noisy, 
many  frantic.  It  is  as  if  a  vast  population  were  hag- 
ridden. So  soon  as  we  alighted  from  our  wagonette  two 
or  three  men  speaking  pigeon-English  fastened  on  us, 
anxious  to  be  our  guides ;  around  our  group  over  a  hundred 
people  of  all  ages  and  both  sexes  massed  themselves,  hold- 
ing out  their  small  or  large  or  skinny  arms,  and  clamour- 
ing for  "baksheesh."  We  needed  the  guides  simply  to 
clear  a  path  before  us,  which  they  did  by  yells  and  blows. 
As  we  tried  to  move  it  was  hardly  possible  to  take  a  step 
without  running  down  some  of  the  innumerable  children, 
whose  only  clothing  was  a  bit  of  metal  in  the  nostril,  to 
which  some  added  a  string  around  the  pit  of  the  stomach. 
No  Hindu  deity  or  demon  was  ever  more  many-handed 
than  each  of  these  their  worshippers.  One  boy  of  ten  or 
twelve  years,  particularly  urgent  in  his  entreaties,  supplied 
us  with  a  naive  specimen  of  some  of  these  beggars.  As 
we  were  nearing  a  point  where  many  genuine  sufferers 
were  displaying  their  physical  distortions  and  ailments, 
Sir  William  wanted  some  pice  to  distribute,  and  de- 
manded copper  change  for  silver.  On  the  instant  the  lad 
who  had  begged  so  piteously  drew  out  a  well-loaded 
money-bag,  counted  out  the  change,  and  instantly  began 
again  his  whine  for  baksheesh. 

The  first  crowd  that  beset  us  became  discouraged  when 
they  found  that  Sir  William  knew  their  language  and  them 
perfectly,  so  our  way  through  the  throng  became  easier 
for  a  little  time.  We  came  upon  several  small  shrines  in 
small  booths,  in  which  rude  effigies  of  aboriginal  deities 
were  huddled  together  in  anomalous  fashion.  Beside  the 
bloodthirsty  Kali  was  Ganesa,  god  of  wisdom ;  on  either 
side  of  these  were  the  Linga;  while  before  them  were 
five  large  green  pumpkins,  each  with  green  leaves  on 


SIR  WILLIAM   HUNTER  237 

its  top.  Indeed  the  Linga  appeared  at  every  step,  and 
by  no  means  so  much  conventionalized  as  in  the  temples. 
In  one  or  two  instances  it  was  rather  startling  to  observe 
the  degree  of  realism  with  which  the  symbols  of  reproduc- 
tion were  displayed.  It  seems  admissible  for  anybody  to 
set  up  a  red  ugly  figure,  with  goggle-eyes  and  monstrous 
teeth,  call  it  by  the  name  of  some  deity,  and  beg  pice  for 
looking  at  it.  Sir  William,  however,  paused  only  at  places 
which  displayed  forms  of  mythological  or  archaeological 
interest.  His  explanations  of  them  to  me  — -  their  origin, 
history,  meaning  —  were  listened  to  by  our  pigeon-Eng- 
lish guides  with  mute  astonishment.  They  had  at  first 
attempted  to  give  us  explanations,  but  when  they  found 
that  the  Englishman  proceeded  to  disclose  a  knowledge 
infinitely  beyond  their  own,  and  heard  the  coarsest  kind 
of  symbol  raised  into  significance,  they  were  awestruck. 
"  We  cannot  tell  you  anything,  sir,"  said  one. 

Presently  we  came  to  a  large,  round,  open  building, 
in  the  centre  of  which  was  a  linga-shaped  fountain,  into 
which  priests  were  casting  flowers  (marigolds)  and  ladles 
of  water,  and  beside  which  were  figures  of  a  bull  and  the 
elephant-headed  Ganesa.  This  was  a  comparatively  quiet 
spot,  the  people  about  it  being  fewer  and  more  respect- 
able. Sir  William  gave  me  a  clear  and  full  explanation, 
and  while  he  did  so  a  group  of  natives  drew  near;  all 
voices  ceased ;  it  was  written  on  their  faces  that  they 
never  before  had  associated  any  serious  meaning  with 
those  forms.  One  of  our  guides,  who  spoke  fair  English, 
translated  parts  of  what  Sir  William  said  to  some  young 
people,  and  as  we  passed  on  said,  "  We  have  never  be- 
fore heard  any  such  meaning  connected  with  these  things. 
We  have  never  before  had  here  any  Englishman  like  you, 
sir." 


238  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Just  as  this  was  said  we  passed  six  or  seven  naked, 
long-haired,  and  long-bearded  yogis,  each  squatted  be* 
neath  his  separate  rude  shelter  of  leaves  or  rushes, 
mutely  contemplating  a  smoking  log.  Some  one  said  to 
Sir  William,  "  There  is  a  man  from  the  university,"  and 
on  turning  we  saw  a  fine-looking  yogi,  younger  than 
the  rest,  who  seemed  to  be  out  of  place.  On  approach- 
ing him  we  found  that  he  could  not  only  speak  good 
English,  but  was  a  B.  A.  and  D.  L.  of  Calcutta  University. 
It  was  appalling  to  find  a  graduate  of  the  university  and 
of  the  law  school  in  such  situation.  This  yogi  had  excited 
unusual  interest,  and  a  crowd  hung  round  him.  The 
following  conversation,  of  which  I  made  careful  notes, 
ensued :  — 

Hunter.   What  led  you  to  become  a  yogi  ? 

Yogi.   The  government  made  me  a  yogi. 

Hunter.   How  did  they  do  that? 

Yogi.  They  ordered  me  to  go  through  the  exercises 
necessary  to  become  a  yogi. 

Hunter.  You  are  not  telling  me  the  facts.  You  must 
have  had  some  inducement  to  become  a  yogi. 

Yogi  (smiling).  I  am  the  largest  native  landowner 
about  here ;  I  inherited  three  hundred  acres ;  I  thought 
I  could  fulfil  the  obligations  and  duties  of  the  estate  bet- 
ter by  becoming  a  yogi.  The  government  said  so. 

Hunter.   Do  you  spend  the  whole  day  here  ? 

Yogi.   Yes,  and  the  night  —  when  there  is  less  noise. 

Hunter.   How  do  you  occupy  yourself  ? 

Yogi.  Worshipping  the  fire  there. 

Hunter.   Do  you  expect  to  become  better  by  it  ? 

Yogi.  Yes.  By  exercises,  by  prayers,  I  may  make  my- 
self better,  and  gradually  become  an  abdur. 

M.  D.  C.   Will  you  sit  here  then  as  now  ? 


A   "GOVERNMENT  YOGI"  239 

Yogi.   Yes. 

M.  D.  C.  Will  you  then  have  power  to  work  miracles? 

Yogi.   No.    Christ  alone  could  work  miracles. 

That  was  the  last  of  our  interview  with  this  bachelor 
of  arts  and  of  laws.  On  his  forehead,  as  he  again  bent 
it  towards  the  burning  log,  I  observed  a  special  Siva-mark 
(one  red  between  two  ashen  lines),  and  thought  it  was 
about  time  for  another  avatar  of  Vishnu  when  any  partner 
of  the  Triad  can  so  bring  a  man  of  talent  to  the  dust. 
Sir  William  thought  it  probable  that  the  yogi's  state- 
ment that  the  government  had  directed  him  to  become 
such  must  be  based  on  some  clause  in  the  title  to  his 
land,  which  may  have  been  originally  deeded  to  an 
ancestor,  as  "  Mr.  So-and-so,  yogi"  and  that  he  may 
have  erroneously  inferred  that  his  tenure  might  not  be 
secure  unless  he  also  became  a  yogi.  The  fiction  of 
being  a  "  government  yogi "  would  also  give  him  excep- 
tional importance.  But  of  what  utility  could  the  acres,  or 
all  the  wealth  of  Indies,  be  to  a  man  doomed  for  life  to 
sit  looking  at  a  smoking  log?  I  had  witnessed  a  living 
cremation,  and  yet  there  was  no  trace  of  sadness  in  the 
victim's  countenance,  —  indeed  he  was  cheerful.1 

Another  yogi,  with  long  black  hair  and  beard  surround- 
ing a  face  that  seemed  a  hundred  years  old,  gazed  at  me 
with  eyes  that  never  winked,  and  in  which  there  was  no 

1  The  motive  of  this  yogi,  at  once  worldly  and  virtually  suicidal,  ang- 
gests  a  clue  to  the  rage  with  which  atheism  is  commonly  met.  Denial  of 
the  existence  of  God  is  dreaded  more  than  crime.  Why  is  that  ?  Who  has 
informed  the  world  that  God  objects  to  having  his  existence  denied  ?  It 
cannot  be  imagined  that  the  existence  depends  on  whether  men  believe  it 
or  not,  or  that  divine  happiness  can  be  affected  by  the  disbelief  of  men ;  but 
there  are  many  human  institutions  and  interests,  of  a  social,  political,  and 
pecuniary  kind,  which  have  the  name  of  God  in  their  titles,  and  seem  to 
rest  upon  his  genuineness.  If  there  is  no  God  such  as  is  therein  described, 
they  might  look  absurd,  and  their  authority  might  be  questioned. 


240  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

speculation.  His  nearly  naked  form  was  motionless,  not  a 
gesture  exhibited  any  sign  of  life ;  he  looked  like  painted 
wood.  I  remembered  how  in  early  life  I  used  to  find  a 
certain  romance  in  reading  about  yogis  —  the  picture  of 
the  holy  man  in  the  forest,  given  in  "  Sakuntala,"  who  had 
sat  motionless  so  long  that  birds  built  their  nests  in  his 
rags,  and  the  serpent  cast  its  skin  across  his  lap.  But  the 
yogi  is  much  more  attractive  in  the  verse  of  Kalidasa  than 
when  seen  near  to. 

We  passed  through  streets  about  ten  feet  wide  between 
booths  bristling  with  begging  hands,  and  came  upon  a 
lane  or"  howling  malformations,  monstrosities,  madnesses. 
One  had  no  legs,  another  no  thighs ;  armless  boys,  leg- 
less men,  several  whose  arms  end  in  bone  or  their  legs  in 
clubs ;  an  epileptic  crone  beating  her  head  against  the 
earth ;  another  who  looked  like  a  ball  on  two  bones.  As, 
scattering  coppers  to  each,  we  pressed  beyond  these  rav- 
ing sufferers,  their  cries  sounded  as  if  gathered  in  one 
agonized,  sharp  voice,  the  scream  of  some  monster,  that 
curdled  the  blood. 

But  now  we  were  caught  in  a  crowd  even  more  uncanny, 
were  that  possible.  It  was  a  crowd  of  convulsionaires, 
fresh  from  the  annual  pilgrimage  to  Sagar,  mouth  of  the 
river,  all  struggling  to  get  near  one  shrine.  The  slight 
garment  each  wore  was  nearly  torn  from  some  of  them, 
but  they  forgot  that  and  everything  else  as  with  shouts 
and  cries  they  pushed  and  elbowed  each  other.  A  path  was 
laboriously  made  for  us  until  we  reached  the  entrance  of 
the  portico,  beyond  which  profane  feet  cannot  go.  The 
great  goddess  Kali  was  now  only  a  few  yards  away,  but 
shut  from  our  view  by  a  wall  of  naked  backs,  every 
muscle  standing  out  in  knots.  I  was  almost  in  despair  of 
seeing  Kali  at  all ;  but  Sir  William  had  a  silver  talisman, 


KALI'S  IMAGE  241 

at  sight  of  which  three  or  four  stalwart  fellows  pum- 
melled the  wall  of  backs  until  one  after  another  veered 
aside,  and  through  a  rift  in  the  mass  I  saw  the  renowned 
image  of  Kali.  Her  visage  was  black  as  tar,  save  for  her 
three  blood-red  eyes  (one  in  the  forehead),  red  eyebrows, 
and  red  tongue  lolling  down  and  dripping  blood  on  her 
breast.  Two  erect  cobras  made  the  ornaments  of  her 
cheeks,  and  a  crown  of  gold  and  red,  haloed  with  black 
smoke-rays,  was  on  her  head.  She  had  four  jewelled  arms 
and  hands  —  two  blood-red,  one  held  upward,  the  other 
downward,  the  others  bearing  respectively  a  rapier  and 
the  head  it  had  cut  off.  Her  form  below  the  breast  was  in 
a  sort  of  pit,  where  several  people  stood  making  offerings. 
While  I  was  gazing  one  of  these  turned,  and  I  beheld 
close  beside  Kali's  fearful  face  a  countenance  tender  and 
lovely  enough  for  a  Madonna. 

Kali's  image  was  too  antiquated  and  impossible  to 
shock  me  very  much,  but  the  horror  was  that  she  should 
be  worshipped,  and  cruel  sacrifices  offered.  For  the  space 
of  twenty  or  thirty  feet  the  pavement  was  wet  with  blood. 
Kids  were  lying  about  in  dying  convulsions. 

At  dinner  that  evening  the  meat  first  served  was  kid ; 
I  could  not  touch  it,  and  it  disgusted  me  with  all  the 
meat.  For  the  first  time  I  pondered  with  interest  what 
is  said  in  Corinthians  of  eating  things  offered  to  idols. 
Paul's  objection  (1  Cor.  x,  20),  that  the  Gentile  sacri- 
fices were  "  to  demons  and  not  to  God,"  and  "  ye  cannot 
partake  of  the  table  of  the  Lord  and  of  the  table  of 
demons,"  —  the  substitution  of  human  sacrifice  for  an- 
imal sacrifice,  —  set  me  to  reconsidering  the  story  of  the 
violence  of  Jesus  in  the  temple,  which  I  once  rejected  as 
preposterous. 

At  such  shrines  one  sees  mostly  the  picked  people  of 


242  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

superstition  collected  from  many  neighbourhoods,  and  by 
no  means  representative  of  the  country  generally.  And 
for  these,  too,  it  should  be  said  that  Kali,  in  their  hearts, 
is  by  no  means  so  black  as  she  is  painted. 

In  a  strict  sense  there  could  be  no  such  thing  as  devil- 
worship.  A  devil,  being  pure  evil,  without  any  heart  at 
all,  could  not  be  reached  more  than  a  stone  by  an  appeal 
to  compassion.  Demon-worship  is  a  different  thing.  Dr. 
Rajendralala  Mitra  recalled  with  emotion  that  on  his  re- 
covery from  a  dangerous  pleurisy  he  accompanied  his 
aged  mother  to  Kalighat,  where  tottering  before  Kali  she 
bared  her  bosom  and  with  a  knife  drew  some  drops  of 
blood  between  her  breasts.  This  was  in  fulfilment  of  a 
vow  made  during  his  illness.  It  occurred  about  1875.  I 
observed  no  such  ceremony  at  Kalighat,  though  such  may 
have  occurred.  That  a  few  drops  of  blood  alone  are  suffi- 
cient shows  that  Kali  does  not  feed  on  it,  but  accepts  it  as 
an  evidence  of  respect  or  of  earnestness.  It  is  somewhat 
like  the  baptismal  sprinkling,  which  no  longer  means  to 
most  parents  the  actual  exorcism  of  a  devil  from  the  babe, 
but  only  its  consecration. 

The  good  fairy  of  our  own  European  mythology  is 
sometimes  disguised  as  a  hag,  and  in  Norse  fable  as  a 
dragon,  and  there  are  stories  of  Kali  which  suggest  a  soft 
place  in  her  heart.  In  Lai  Behari  Day's  "  Folk-Tales  of 
Bengal "  there  is  one  of  a  dead  child  placed  by  its  mother 
near  the  shrine  of  Kali  and  restored  to  life.  Perhaps  that 
woman  with  the  Madonna  face  whom  I  saw  making  of- 
ferings to  Kali  was  pleading  with  the  fierce  goddess  for 
some  little  sufferer  at  home. 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  it  is  the  women  who 
mainly  attend  churches  and  keep  them  going.  In  my 
Methodist  days  I  had  many  more  female  than  male 


WOMAN  AND  THE  CHURCH  243 

hearers,  but  this  was  not  the  case  during  my  ministry  as  a 
rationalist.  In  Washington,  Cincinnati,  and  London  the 
proportions  were  about  equal.  The  average  greater  num- 
ber of  women  in  the  orthodox  churches  may  be  in  part 
accounted  for  by  their  being  less  logical  than  men,  and 
more  able  to  escape  the  real  sense  of  odious  dogmas, 
while  in  their  more  tender  hearts  they  are  able  to  spirit- 
ualize them. 

But  may  not  the  phenomena  be  partly  due  to  a  habit 
transmitted  from  ages  and  regions  when,  in  attendance  at 
temples,  women  secured  some  release  from  their  social 
bondage  ?  In  the  great  festivals  at  Kalighat  and  Allaha- 
bad I  saw  many  Hindu  women  moving  from  shrine  to 
shrine,  and  bathing  freely  and  sportively  in  the  sacred 
rivers,  who  ordinarily  are  shut  up  in  the  domestic  zenana. 
And  during  the  centuries  in  which  something  like  the 
zenana  survived,  though  young  maidens  could  leave  home 
only  under  close  guardianship,  their  dragons  might  be 
bribed,  and  it  was  on  the  way  to  church  that  the  lover 
could  be  met.  From  Boccaccio's  Fiammetta  to  Goethe's 
Gretchen  it  is  church-going  that  furnishes  the  lover's 
opportunity.  The  severe  old  father  cannot  deny  wife  or 
daughter  the  right  to  worship  and  save  their  souls.  And 
at  the  present  day  women  are  accorded  an  equality  in 
churches  denied  them  in  the  political  world.  They  in- 
herit unanalyzed  motives  other  than  piety  to  "  keep  the 
churches  going." 

Returning  to  Calcutta  we  met  a  noisy  parade  of  English 
Salvationists,  men  and  women,  on  which  scholarly  Hin- 
dus (and  there  are  many)  look  with  the  same  feelings  of 
mingled  disgust  and  wonder  that  Christians  feel  on  behold- 
ing the  scenes  at  Kalighat.  It  is  the  unfamiliar  fanaticism 
that  is  revolting.  The  secret  of  success  in  Protestanism 


244  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

lies  largely  in  the  commandment  against  visible  images. 
If  the  dogmas  inside  the  heads  of  those  poor  Salvationists 
were  suddenly  to  take  shape  in  fit  images,  they  would  be 
more  monstrous  than  any  figures  at  Kalighat.  For  they 
too  are  saved  by  the  blood,  and  not  that  of  a  mere  kid. 
Kali  does  not  torture  men  and  women  in  hell,  nor  demand 
a  human  sacrifice  as  the  condition  of  salvation.  And  Kali 
is  admittedly  worshipped  by  the  multitude  through  fear, 
and  that  but  occasionally.  She  is  not  held  up  as  an  ideal 
being.  The  deities  of  India  have  since  Buddha's  rebellion 
been  generally  converted  to  benignity,  and  not  one  —  not 
even  Siva  —  is  "angry  every  day,"  nor  with  any  one  for 
what  his  ancestor  did.  The  demonstrations  of  fanaticism 
in  India  may  appear  greater  than  those  of  Salvationism 
in  England  because  the  population  there  is  five  times 
larger,  and  because  the  people  are  much  poorer  and  can- 
not surround  their  festivals  with  artistic  decorations.  But 
relatively  to  numbers  the  proportion  of  those  free  from 
religious  superstition  is  as  large  in  India  as  in  England 
and  America. 

On  the  day  following  my  visit  to  Kalighat  a  dinner  was 
given  in  my  honour  by  Prince  Furrokh  Shah,  in  his  fine 
residence,  Russapugla,  four  miles  out  of  Calcutta,  the  com- 
pliment being  I  suppose  on  account  of  my  compilation, 
"  The  Sacred  Anthology,"  of  which  my  South  Place  friend, 
Walter  Thomson,  sent  an  edition  to  India  for  presentation 
to  leading  men  and  public  teachers.  The  book  was  my 
best  passport  in  India,  and  the  splendid  dinner  given  by 
this  Moslem  prince  presented  a  pretty  and  almost  mystical 
illustration  of  the  unity  of  the  hearts  out  of  which  grew  the 
flowers  I  had  gathered  from  many  different  religions.  All 
present  were  Hindu  gentlemen,  mainly  professional  men, 
so  fluent  in  English,  and  talking  with  so  much  wit,  that  I 


IDOLS  MISUNDERSTOOD  245 

could  fancy  myself  dining  with  my  brother  Omarites  of 
our  Omar  Khayam  Club  in  London.  The  Hon.  Mouloy 
Mahomed  Yusoof  took  me  out  in  his  carriage,  and  the 
other  guests  the  Maharajah  Sir  Jotendra  Mohun  Tajore 
Bahadoor,  Jogendra  Chandra  Ghosh,  Maharajah  Narendra 
Krishna,  Kristodas  Pal,  Baboo  Joy  Kissen  Mokerji  and 
his  brother  Peary,  Councillor  Syed  Ameer  Ali,  the  bril- 
liant young  lawyers  Bannerji  and  Chatterji.  They  were 
all  friends,  men  of  the  world  in  a  high  sense ;  and  if,  with 
their  culture,  their  refined  faces  and  manners,  they  could 
all  be  transferred  to  Boston,  there  would  be  a  glad  cry  there 
that  its  literary  era  had  returned.  Yet  these  are  the  men  to 
whom  Boston  sends  missionaries !  No  dozen  missionaries 
in  India,  were  their  brains  packed  together,  could  equal  any 
one  of  these  heads.  The  talk  was  mainly  of  English  and 
American  literature  and  philosophy,  in  which  they  were 
well  read.  Little  was  said  about  religion,  but  I  had  some 
conversation  with  one  barrister  (Chatterji,  I  think),  a  na- 
tive of  Benares,  about  the  festival  going  on  at  Kalighat. 
I  mentioned  the  repulsion  I  felt  on  seeing  the  sacrifice  of 
kids,  and  that  I  could  not  eat  the  flesh  when  offered  at  my 
hotel.  He  said  the  vulgar  fanaticism  was  equally  repulsive 
to  educated  Hindus ;  then  remarked  that  there  was  mis- 
understanding among  foreigners  of  what  they  call  "idols." 
Even  the  humble  people  do  not  worship  the  images  in 
themselves.  The  images  are  covered  with  symbolical  orna- 
ments representing  the  character  or  legendary  deeds  of 
this  or  that  divinity.  Each  divinity  has  a  certain  day  in 
the  month,  and  a  certain  hour,  when  he  or  she  enters 
his  or  her  temple,  and  by  a  temporary  transubstantiation 
enters  the  image.  After  receiving  due  offerings  the  deity 
departs,  and  from  that  moment  until  the  return  of  their 
festival  the  image  is  without  any  sanctity  whatever.  It 


246  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

possesses  no  continuous  sanctity  like  the  cross.  After  the 
blood  has  been  shed  before  Kali  she  departs,  and  the  kids 
may  be  sold  and  eaten  like  any  other  meat.  "  We  boys  at 
Benares  used  for  fun  to  strip  and  roll  ourselves  in  the 
blood  of  the  kids,  then  go  and  plunge  into  a  tank  or 
stream  for  a  swim." 

All  this  talk  was  across  the  table,  heard  of  all  the  circle 
in  which  all  religions  had  their  evolved  representatives. 
There  was  nothing  secret,  no  whispers,  but  perfect  free- 
dom, so  that  our  host,  the  Moslem  Prince  Furrokh  Shah, 
was  presiding  over  a  sort  of  Akbar  assembly  from  which 
the  polemics  had  died  away. 

This  experience  of  the  Rationalist  Brahman  barrister 
interested  me  still  more  in  the  goddess  Kali.  In  my 
"Demonology  and  Devil-Lore"  my  account  of  Kali  was 
academic.  The  picture  (vol.  i,  fig.  18),  copied  from  a 
Hindu  print,  does  not  represent  her  as  without  comeli- 
ness, and  probably  it  was  chiefly  the  smearings  of  blood 
which  made  the  large  image  at  Kalighat  so  repulsive; 
but  I  must  now  see  in  that  image  only  a  decorated  an- 
tique casket  in  which  an  invisible  being  enters  at  certain 
times.  The  Hindu  scholars  with  whom  I  conversed  could 
not  give  me  any  idea  of  that  invisible  Kali.  She  is  tread- 
ing Siva,  her  husband,  under  her  feet,  —  the  legend  being 
that  he  threw  himself  there  to  arrest  her  dance,  that 
threatened  to  destroy  the  universe.  The  dance  was  for 
joy  in  having  decapitated  the  hundred  heads  of  a  giant 
demon  (euphemistically  demigod).  Siva  himself  being  the 
god  of  Destruction,  the  myth  taken  strictly  is  that  of  a 
house  divided  against  itself.  The  position  of  Siva  is  that 
of  Satan  under  the  archangel's  foot.  As  for  her  girdle  of 
heads,  they  are  those  of  the  many-headed  demon  she  had 
destroyed  before  Siva  could  stop  her  dangerous  dance. 


MAN'S  ABDICATION  247 

What  of  Kali's  right  hand,  raised  upward  in  bene- 
diction ?  As  I  sat  at  midnight  on  my  hotel  portico,  I  saw 
again  as  in  a  dream  that  Madonna-like  woman  who  stood 
nearest  to  the  goddess  at  Kalighat;  and  amid  the  out- 
ward silence  a  still  small  voice  said  to  my  inward  ear, 
"  I  am  Kali.  When,  in  an  age  far  past,  prophets  arose 
to  tell  mankind  that  their  agonies  were  inflicted  by  cruel 
and  heartless  deities,  I  went  forth,  a  princess  turned 
prophetess,  to  point  the  sufferers  upward  to  a  paradise 
where  all  their  sorrows  would  be  compensated,  and  all 
tears  wiped  away.  '  After  death  ? '  the  people  cried ;  *  why 
not  now?'  Then  I  went  into  retreat,  and  reflection,  to 
reappear  with  the  faith  that  all  human  agonies  and  evils 
are  disguises  of  a  universal  maternal  love  which  by  such 
terrible  discipline  trains  the  sufferers  for  eternal  felicity. 
Alas,  that  heavenward  hand  drew  on  the  three  hands  of 
destruction  assigned  me  after  death.  My  casket  was  cov- 
ered equally  with  flowers  and  with  the  symbols  of  ferocity 
and  disease  in  nature.  I  had  by  my  optimism  consecrated 
the  horrors  of  this  predatory  world.  You  see  me  pedes- 
talled  on  the  genius  of  Destruction,  whom  my  love  should 
have  trodden  down.  Ah,  thou  traveller  unknown,  the  fatal 
teaching  in  this  world  is  that  all  is  under  divine  Provi- 
dence, and  all  evil  good  at  heart.  That  is  man's  abdi- 
cation ! " 


CHAPTER  XII 

Exploring  Bengal  —  A  conference  of  religions  —  Moslem  Christianity  — 
Dr.  Rajendraldla  Mitra  on  Christian  polytheism  —  Hon.  Syed  Ameer  All 

—  Dr  Ananda  Cumara  Swamy  —  The    marvellous  dolls  —  Maharajah 
Sir  Jotendra  Mohun  Tajore  —  The  demonized  Buddha  —  Buddha-Gaya 

—  Root  of  Buddha's  Bo-tree  — Letter  from  Dr.  Mitra — Buddhist-Hindu- 
philosophy  —  Benares  —  Monkey  Temple  —  Deer  Park  and  legend  of  the 
Mango  Girl  —  "  The  Toy-Cart  "  —  Our  Western  Buddha. 

SIR  WILLIAM  HUNTER  came  in  his  carriage  one 
day  and  said,  "  I  intend  to  show  you  Bengal."  I 
had  only  a  day  or  two  more  in  Calcutta,  but  my  simple 
faith  in  the  Gazetteer-general  of  India  prevented  niy  hav- 
ing any  doubt  about  his  ability  to  show  me  a  great  province 
in  that  time.  We  drove  nearly  ten  miles  into  the  country, 
and  visited  the  homes  of  several  humble  Hindu  families  of 
which  he  knew  something.  Sir  William  told  them  in  their 
own  language  that  he  wished  me  to  see  the  interior  of  the 
houses,  and  these  were  cheerfully  shown.  Even  the  women 
(most  of  them  comely)  were  not  shy  of  us ;  they  smilingly 
made  a  half  movement  aside  but  not  out  of  sight ;  and  it 
was  especially  notable  that  those  who  in  the  hot  weather 
had  scanty  clothing  did  not  show  any  consciousness  of  that 
at  all.  In  one  house  a  woman  scampered  out  of  sight  in 
earnest,  but  it  was  because  her  father-in-law  had  come  in 
at  the  gate.  In  no  case  must  a  wife  meet  her  husband's 
father ! 

The  houses  were  poor  to  look  at,  but  comfortable  enough 
inside.  One  man  took  us  to  see  a  curious  thing  in  the 
woods  near  his  house,  —  an  enormous  stone,  about  ten  feet 
square  and  more  than  two  thick,  held  seven  feet  in  the  air 


A  CONFERENCE  OF  RELIGIONS        249 

by  four  trees.  The  trees  clamped  it  at  the  corners,  having 
grown  around  them  and  then  gone  on  into  stately  forest 
trees.  The  stone  which  the  trees  had  raised  by  their  growth 
was  known  as  "  the  dog's  grave,"  the  legend  being  similar 
to  that  of  the  Beth  Gelert  stones  in  Wales  celebrated  in 
the  ballad  "Llewellyn's  Dog."  In  most  European  ver- 
sions —  e.  g.  in  Home,  Munich,  and  Ireland  —  the  faithful 
animal,  slain  on  suspicion  of  having  killed  the  infant  it 
had  saved,  is  an  ape. 

When  we  had  visited  eight  or  ten  of  these  houses  and 
several  shrines,  Sir  William  said,  "  I  have  now  shown  you 
Bengal.  You  may  travel  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other 
and  see  only  just  such  houses  and  shrines  and  such  people 
as  those  we  have  visited." 

This  generous  friend  arranged  an  assembly  of  learned 
Brahmans,  Brahmos,  Moslems,  and  Parsis  to  meet  me  for 
conference  on  religious  and  philosophical  subjects.  The 
meeting  was  held  in  the  government  Council  Chamber 
and  the  grand  native  personages  came  in  their  fine  robes. 
The  Pandits  were  apparently  rationalists;  the  principal 
one,  a  grand  looking  man  who  spoke  excellent  English, 
asked  me  my  opinion  about  the  miraculous  concep- 
tion of  Christ.  I  regarded  it  as  like  the  legend  of  the 
virgin-born  deity  of  the  Hooghly  River,  whose  annual 
fete  was  going  on ;  a  story  of  mythological  and  poetic 
interest,  but  not  to  be  regarded  as  historical.  The  Pandit 
said  that  such  was  exactly  his  opinion  of  both  the  Chris- 
tian and  the  Hooghly  legends,  and  it  was  the  general 
opinion  of  educated  Brahmans.  Other  Pandits  confirmed 
his  view,  and  also  several  English  scholars  present.  The 
Moslems,  of  whom  there  were  a  dozen  of  high  rank  in 
the  room,  had  said  nothing,  and  I  remarked  that  I  would 
like  to  hear  their  opinion.  Thereupon  the  Moslems  bent 


250  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

their  richly  turbaned  heads  together  in  private  consulta- 
tion. At  length  one  of  them  arose  and  said  that  they  all 
felt  "bound  to  accept  the  narrative  just  as  it  stands  in 
in  the  New  Testament." 

As  the  Moslems  were  the  only  orthodox  Christians  pre- 
sent, but  would  not  argue  about  their  faith,  our  confer- 
ence amounted  only  to  a  high  appreciation  on  the  part  of 
the  Pandits  of  English  science  and  literature,  responded 
to  by  our  exaltation  of  the  sacred  books  and  poems  of 
India.  The  most  notable  thing  was  that  in  a  large  com- 
pany in  Calcutta,  of  which  a  third  were  influential  and 
official  Englishmen,  the  only  believers  in  Christian  super- 
naturalism  were  the  Moslems !  I  was  also  impressed  by 
the  familiarity  of  the  Brahmans  with  all  those  vital  prob- 
lems with  which  we  were  so  occupied  in  Europe  and 
America,  —  divine  existence,  fate,  freedom,  animism,  im- 
mortality, —  these  issues  being  raised  in  their  own  philo- 
sophical systems.  Discussions,  in  the  western  world  have 
no  doubt  revived  the  interest  of  Hindu  thinkers  in  such 
questions,  but  have  given  them  no  idea  not  found  in  their 
own  ancient  books. 

James  Sime,  biographer  of  Lessing,  told  me  that  on 
Schopenhauer's  last  day  he  said,  "  I  am  Buddha !  "  Those 
around  him  supposed  that  his  mind  was  wandering,  but 
the  pessimist's  words  had  meaning.  Dr.  Rhys  Davids  says : 
"  Gotama  Buddha  was  the  Auguste  Comte  born  two  thou- 
sand years  too  soon,"  but  I  should  rather  describe  him,  as 
the  Schopenhauer  of  that  time. 

The  venerable  author,  Dr.  Rajendralala  Mitra,  was  un- 
able to  attend  the  conference,  but  requested  me  to  visit  him. 
I  found  him  in  his  large  fine  library,  and  but  for  his  com- 
plexion I  might  have  fancied  myself  conversing  with  some 
eminent  orientalist  in  Europe.  He  was  simply  the  philo- 


DR.   MITRA  251 

sophic  scholar  and  interpreter  of  religious  phenomena, 
without,  I  believe,  any  connection  with  the  temples.  His 
countenance  was  handsome  and  full  of  sensibility,  his 
individuality  and  humour  reminding  me  at  times  of  our 
American  Ingersoll.  The  Christian  propaganda  in  India 
having  fallen  mostly  into  the  hands  of  missionaries  without 
culture  and  the  Salvation  Army,  these  have  brought  about 
this  strange  situation :  the  West  boasting  of  its  Science 
sends  to  India  a  religion  resting  on  a  claim  to  authority, 
and  is  there  confronted  by  a  religion  appealing  only  to  its 
reasonableness.  The  signs  and  wonders  and  the  dogmas 
being  thus  emphasized,  the  Hindu  scholars  are  provided 
with  a  sort  of  Museum  of  Antiquities.  "  Like  every  other 
religion,  Christianity  is  a  polytheistic  system,"  said  Dr. 
Mitra ;  "  Satan  and  the  '  sons  of  God,'  and  the  archangels 
are  just  as  much  deities  as  the  so-called  gods  of  India, 
who  are  subordinate  to  the  Triad  just  as  Satan  and  the 
angels  are  to  the  Trinity.  Educated  Christians  put  these 
things  into  the  background,  just  as  educated  Indians  do 
their  minor  deities,  the  priests  turning  them  into  allego- 
ries." He  had  something  like  enthusiasm  for  Buddha,  but 
could  not  make  a  genuine  human  character  out  of  Christ. 
I  mentioned  some  of  the  suppressed  and  recently  discov- 
ered Sayings  of  Jesus,  and  he  was  impressed  by  them, 
especially  the  declaration  that  he  had  "  come  to  dissolve  the 
sacrifices."  He  took  from  a  shelf  his  English  translation 
of  "  The  Yoga  Aphorisms  of  Pantanjali "  and  presented  it 
to  me,  after  pointing  out  in  it  a  quotation  from  the  an- 
cient (Sanscrit)  Lalista-Vistara  recording  an  utterance  of 
Buddha  closely  resembling  that  of  Jesus  about  sacrifices. 
After  mentioning  the  fallacious  ways  in  which  people 
seek  purification  ("fancying  the  image  of  a  divinity  in 
one's  mind,  saluting  supposed  divinities,"  etc.),  Buddha 


252  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

adds :  "  To  persons  deluded  by  ascetic  works  and  by 
sacrifices  I  shall  show  the  destruction  of  all  works  and 
sacrifices." 

Dr.  Rajendralala  Mitra  enriched  me  by  sending  to  my 
lodgings  his  great  work  on  the  Aryan  race  and  that  on 
Buddha-Gaya,  which  I  was  about  to  visit.  In  one  of  his 
volumes  I  remarked  a  significant  mistranslation  of  a 
couplet  in  an  old  Methodist  hymn :  — 

The  world  is  all  a  fleeting  show 
For  man's  illusion  given. 

The  word  in  the  hymn  is  delusion,  and  the  meaning  is  as 
far  from  the  oriental  doctrine  of  illusion  as  the  East  is 
from  the  West.1 

Although,  as  I  have  said,  it  is  rare  to  find  a  sceptical 
Moslem,  there  is  in  India  a.  rationalistic  sect  (Mutarza- 
lite)  whose  chief  interpreter  is  Syed  Ameer  Ali.  It  was 
pleasant  indeed  to  meet  in  Calcutta  Syed  Ameer  Ali,  whose 
friendship  I  had  enjoyed  in  London,  and  whose  ideas 
were  so  individual  and  his  spirit  so  sweet  that  he  had 
often  suggested  to  me  the  refined  Sufi  Mohammedanism 
of  Persia  which  one  breathes  in  the  Rose-Garden  of  Saadi, 
—  the  "Gulistan." 

When  Syed  Ameer  Ali  was  a  law  student  at  the  Inner 
Temple,  London,  he  was  often  at  our  house ;  we  loved  him, 
and  his  beautiful  spirit  seemed  to  transfuse  his  face,  form, 
voice,  manner,  —  his  entire  being.  At  that  time  he  wrote 
"  A  Critical  Examination  of  the  Life  and  Teachings  of 
Mohammed  "  (1873),  which  I  found  a  delightful  book ; 
it  raised  all  Islam  —  which  I  had  deemed  a  hard  eastern 
Calvinism  —  in  my  esteem  that  such  a  man  could  love 
it,  and  draw  so  much  truth  and  beauty  out  of  it.  I  still 

1  1906.  The  hymn  is  omitted  in  the  new  American  Methodist  hymnal. 


HON.   SYED   AMEER  ALI 


SYED  AMEER  ALI  253 

regard  this  little  book  as  the  best  known  to  me  on  the 
subject. 

The  young  author  and  barrister  —  of  fairer  complexion 
than  most  Hindus  —  fell  in  love  with  a  young  English 
lady,  Miss  Kohnstram  —  who  with  her  mother  sometimes 
came  to  my  chapel,  —  and  his  love  was  requited.  Her 
mother  came  to  converse  with  my  wife  and  myself  about 
Syed  Ameer  Ali  personally,  and  asked  what  I  thought  of 
the  wisdom  of  marriage  between  an  English  lady  and  an 
Indian.  How  was  her  or  his  social  position  likely  to  be 
affected  in  India  ?  My  wife  and  I  had  heard  nothing  about 
the  matter  from  him,  and  it  was  by  a  spontaneous  out- 
burst that  we  both  declared  that  after  knowing  him  for 
'some  years  we  considered  him  worthy  even  of  her  cultured 
and  fair  daughter.  For  the  rest  I  did  not  believe  that  any 
vulgar  race-prejudice  would  be  found  in  Calcutta  among 
those  whose  acquaintance  could  be  of  any  value  to  either 
of  them. 

When  I  visited  Calcutta  Ameer  Ali  was  a  member 
of  the  Supreme  Legislative  Council.  In  their  beautiful 
home  hearty  welcome  was  given  me,  though  I  do  not 
know  to  this  day  whether  they  were  aware  that  I  had 
been  consulted  about  the  marriage.  I  saw  that  it  had 
proved  an  ideal  marriage  ;  happiness  was  written  on  their 
faces  ;  they  were  surrounded  by  the  most  intellectual  peo- 
ple, and  could  pick  and  choose  their  acquaintances  in 
"  society." 

I  should  add  that  I  observed  several  Hindu  ladies  at 
receptions  in  Calcutta,  and  that  there  appeared  no  sign 
of  colour-prejudice.  The  Hindu  ladies  must  have  distin- 
guished themselves  by  emancipation  from  the  restrictions 
of  the  zenana  and  were  rather  lionized.  But  an  intermar- 
riage between  one  of  the  ruling  race  and  one  of  the  ruled 


254  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

race,  at  the  very  moment  when  reformers  were  demand- 
ing increased  rights  for  the  natives,  could  hardly  fail  to 
excite  misgivings  of  the  "conservatives."  The  personal 
equation,  however,  was  too  potent  in  this  case  for  any  man- 
ifestation of  religious  or  race  prejudices.1 

A  gentlemanly  young  English  traveller  whom  I  chanced 

1  1906.  Ameer  All  has  had  a  unique  career.  In  1879  he  was  appointed 
Chief  Presidency  Magistrate ;  he  sat  for  several  years  in  the  Bengal 
Legislative  Council,  and  in  1884  was  appointed  by  Lord  Eipon  to  the 
Imperial  Council ;  he  was  created  by  Lord  Dufferin  Companion  of  the 
Indian  Empire ;  in  1890  he  was  at  Lord  Lansdowne's  request  appointed  a 
Justice  of  the  High  Court.  In  all  of  these  positions  Ameer  All's  services 
were  universally  recognized,  and  at  the  same  time  he  has  written  works 
of  the  most  painstaking  character  and  the  highest  value  :  "  The  Mahom- 
medan  Law ;  "  "  Personal  Law  of  the  Mahommedans ; "  "  The  Spirit  of 
Islam;"  "The  Ethics  of  IslSm;"  "  A  Short  History  of  the  Saracens."  In 
1904  Justice  Ameer  Ali  retired  from  the  bench  and  is  at  present  in  Eng- 
land (where  his  sons  are  at  college)  and  engaged  on  a  "  History  of  Ma- 
hommedan  Civilization  in  India."  He  is  the  only  Mohammedan  author, 
and  it  is  a  happy  event  that  he  can  devote  himself  to  literature. 

From  the  Dufferins  and  from  Sir  William  Hunter  I  heard  of  the  high 
esteem  in  which  Justice  Ali  and  his  wife  were  held.  Their  house  was  a 
favourite  social  centre,  and  Mrs.  Ameer  All's  Friday  receptions  and  her 
parties  always  drew  the  best  people  together. 

Another  intermarriage  which  much  interested  me  was  that  of  the  late 
Sir  Mutu  Cumara  Swamy  of  Ceylon  with  a  beautiful  lady  of  my  London 
chapel  (Miss  Elizabeth  Beeby).  To  this  I  have  alluded  in  my  seventh 
chapter  in  connection  with  the  brilliant  entertainments  given  me  by  bis 
nephews.  These  gentlemen  are  now  the  chief  representatives  of  the  ancient 
ruling  race  —  Tamil  —  in  Ceylon.  The  widow  of  Sir  Mutu  I  remember  re- 
turning to  London  with  her  pretty  little  boy ;  and  by  a  letter  I  have  just 
received  from  Hon.  P.  Arunachalam  I  learn  that  this  boy,  Ananda  Cumara 
Swamy,  has  made  a  name  for  himself  in  Science  (D.  Sc.  Lond.,  F.  L.  S  . 
F.  S.  S.),  and  is  now  employed  in  Ceylon  as  Director  of  the  Mineralogical 
Survey.  He  has  also  edited,  in  connection  with  another  able  man,  W.  A. 
de  Silva,  "  The  Ceylon  National  Review,"  an  organ  of  the  Ceylon  Social 
Reform  Society,  which  aims  to  prevent  the  Sinhalese  and  Tamils  from 
being  westernized  or  Christianized,  and  to  liberate  women  from  the  social 
seclusion  (the  "purdah,  in  India  "  zenana")  which  was  "borrowed  from 
the  Mohammedan  conquerors  of  India." 


THE  MARVELLOUS  DOLLS  255 

to  meet  told  me  that  he  had  seen  a  Hindu  cut  a  boy  to 
pieces  with  his  sword,  then  throw  the  severed  limbs  in  a 
bag ;  in  a  minute  the  boy  came  running  up,  and  the  bag 
was  opened  and  found  empty.  "  Can  you  believe  that  ?  " 
he  asked.  "No,"  I  replied.  "Nor  can  I,"  said  he ;  "I  be- 
lieve the  conjurer  mesmerized  me."  "You  would  have 
seized  the  assailant  at  the  first  gash,"  I  said.  "  Yes,  cer- 
tainly, if  I  had  been  in  my  senses."  I  was  sceptical  about 
the  exactness  of  this  testimony,  knowing  nothing  of  the 
witness ;  and  if  he  should  see  this  page  he  will  be  equally 
sceptical  about  the  "  doll  trick  "  which  I  saw  in  Calcutta. 
Having  two  visits  to  make  to  eminent  personages,  Dr. 
Hunter  placed  his  carriage  at  my  disposal,  and  also  his 
secretary,  an  intelligent  Babu  who  spoke  English.  As  we 
were  driving  along  the  street  I  saw  a  tent  in  an  open 
space,  beside  which  a  man  was  shouting,  a  crowd  of  boys 
pressing  around  him.  The  Babu  said  it  was  a  conjurer, 
and  I  asked  to  be  driven  to  the  tent.  The  Babu  evi- 
dently did  not  think  it  was  suited  to  our  dignity ;  but  I 
was  eager,  and  the  driver  with  some  astonishment  obeyed 
the  order.  The  conjurer,  overwhelmed  by  seeing  a  fine 
carriage  with  liveried  coachman  approach,  beat  off  the 
boys  with  a  stick,  and  bowed  to  the  ground.  The  show 
had  not  opened,  and  the  Babu  and  myself  had  the  tent 
all  to  ourselves.  It  contained  a  plain  wooden  table  with- 
out cover  or  any  hangings  around  it.  Nothing  else  was 
in  the  tent,  which  was  about  twenty  feet  in  diameter, 
without  floor  and  open  at  the  top.  It  was  flooded  with 
the  noon  light.  The  conjurer,  who  wore  only  a  loin-cloth, 
went  out  at  the  back  and  returned  with  his  doubled  hands 
filled  with  tiny  figures,  each  about  two  inches  high,  with 
straw  legs,  sealing-wax  heads,  and  buttons  to  stand  on. 
He  stood  them  all  in  the  centre  of  the  wooden  table,  then 


256  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

stood  off  two  yards  and  talked  to  them.  Presently  they 
began  to  stir,  to  move,  to  dance.  Waving  a  little  wand, 
beating  time,  but  never  coming  within  two  yards  of  them, 
—  talking  to  them  all  the  time, — he  made  them  dance  in 
every  direction.  I  examined  the  table  above  and  beneath, 
and  passed  my  arm  above  the  dolls  to  discover  whether 
there  might  not  be  invisible  threads  attached  to  them. 
The  conjurer,  through  the  Babu,  asked  me  where  I  wished 
them  to  dance,  and  they  moved  in  every  direction  I  indi- 
cated. I  requested  that  two  should  separate  from  the  rest 
and  dance  apart,  the  others  remaining  stationary.  This 
was  done.  Finally  he  desired  me  to  put  a  penny  on  the 
table;  the  penny  danced  across  the  table  and  pitched 
itself  into  a  little  box.  This  was  the  most  inexplicable 
performance  I  ever  saw. 

The  man  who  exhibits  the  dolls  performs  nothing  else. 
The  Babu  was  troubled  at  my  giving  the  conjurer  two 
rupees,  —  two  or  three  cowries  being  the  usual  fee,  —  but 
said  it  was  the  most  wonderful  performance  known  in 
India,  the  secret  being  kept  close.  It  is  the  only  trick  I 
have  ever  seen  of  which  I  can  imagine  no  explanation. 
We  drove  from  the  tent  to  the  house  of  the  distinguished 
Maharajah,  Sir  Jotendra  Mohun  Tajore,  K.  C.  S.  I.,  who 
could  not  suggest  any  explanation,  though  he  had  seen 
through  a  trick  with  which  Mme.  Blavatsky  tried  to  de- 
ceive him.  The  Maharajah  did  not  go  into  the  particu- 
lars of  this  attempt,  and  appeared  to  be  disappointed  that 
Theosophy  had  turned  out  an  imposture. 

If  Mme.  Blavatsky  had  been  animated  by  any  serious  or 
religious  purpose  she  would  have  known  that  it  could  not 
be  furthered  in  India  by  miracles,  even  were  they  genuine. 
Educated  Hindus  are  too  familiar  with  such  signs  and 
wonders  to  care  for  them,  and  where  believed  they  are 


SHRINE  AT  BUDDHA-GAYA  257 

associated  with  the  dark  and  evil  powers  rather  than  with 
religion.  Theosophy  might  have  attained  a  large  success 
in  India  but  for  its  vulgarization  by  counterfeiting  the 
superstitions  that  give  rise  to  such  fanaticisms  as  those 
at  Kalighat,  of  which  educated  India  is  ashamed.  Such 
power  for  evil  as  Satan  had  over  Job,  Visvamitra  also  had 
over  Harischandra,  the  Indian  Job.  The  learned  yogi  we 
found  at  Kalighat,  who  said,  "Only  Christ  could  work 
miracles,"  never  thought  of  believing  Christianity  on  that 
account. 

From  Calcutta  I  journeyed  to  the  most  sacred  place  in 
Buddhist  tradition,  Buddha-Gaya.  I  there  found  a  nota- 
ble legendary  illustration  of  the  total  separation  between 
preternatural  power  and  holiness  in  the  ancient  theologi- 
cal mind.  On  a  hill  called  Bhurmoilla  (Holy  Stone)  there 
is  an  ancient  shrine  with  the  following  history :  A  certain 
demon  acquired  by  prolonged  rites  and  austerities  celes- 
tial powers  in  addition  to  his  infernal  powers,  and  thereby 
caused  the  altars  to  be  deserted.  The  gods  therefore  united 
to  bury  the  "  holy  demon,"  and  place  on  his  head  a  huge 
stone  to  keep  him  down.  Should  that  stone  be  rolled  away 
the  whole  country  would  be  overwhelmed  by  the  super- 
divine  power  of  the  demon  and  the  temples  all  go  to  ruin. 
There  is  always  this  danger,  for  the  stone  has  to  be  held 
in  its  place  by  an  exceptional  number  of  offerings  and 
sacrifices  every  year.  There  is  a  footprint  of  Vishnu  on 
the  stone,  but  meanwhile  Vishnu,  under  his  form  of  Jug- 
genauth,  is  bringing  back  the  "  holy  demon  "  into  India  as 
his  latest  and  highest  avatar.  For  Rajendralala  Mitra  has 
fully  identified  the  "  holy  demon  "  as  Buddha  himself,  and 
in  the  very  town  consecrated  by  his  spiritual  birth  there 
remains  this  legendary  stone-witness  to  his  contemporary 
reception  as  one  who  "  hath  a  devil  I  " 


258  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Not  one  Brahman  priest  attending  this  Bhurmoilla  knew 
the  origin  of  its  legend,  and  they  would  probably  regard 
it  as  blasphemy  to  call  Buddha  a  demon.  In  my  pilgrim- 
age from  that  stone  to  the  temple  that  has  had  its  resurrec- 
tion over  the  place  of  Buddha's  "enlightenment"  I  was 
in  a  sense  following  the  pilgrimage  of  all  India  in  many 
preceding  centuries  from  the  demonized  to  the  deified 
Buddha.  And  the  towering  temple,  risen  out  of  its  ruins, 
also  denotes  an  English  pilgrimage.  I  can  easily  remem- 
ber a  time  when  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  any 
English  government  to  rebuild  the  temple  of  any  founder 
of  a  "heathen"  religion  which  Christian  missionaries 
were  sent  out  to  destroy. 

Buddha-Gaya  is  not  in  the  path  of  ordinary  travel. 
There  was  no  hotel,  but  my  letters  secured  hospitable  enter- 
tainment in  the  government  bungalow.  The  old  Moslem 
servant  and  I  were  the  only  persons  in  the  bungalow.  He 
provided  me  a  good  luncheon  and  asked  in  good  English 
what  I  would  have  for  dinner,  and  at  what  hour.  I  told 
him  I  would  drive  to  the  ancient  Buddhist  temple  (nearly 
fifteen  miles  away)  and  return  at  night ;  that  I  would  eat 
anything  at  all  except  snake  and  monkey,  —  my  unwill- 
ingness to  feed  on  this  poor  relation  being  especially  strong. 
He  took  my  remark  gravely,  and  said  he  would  avoid  those 
dishes.  The  only  vehicle  I  could  get  was  an  ox-cart,  which 
took  me  out  in  two  hours.  The  driver's  English  was  lim- 
ited to  "Yes,  sir,"  and  the  road  being  lonely  the  silence  was 
leaden.  Even  the  birds  were  silent,  bright  and  warm  as 
was  the  day.  I  remember  no  villages  nor  any  wayfarers. 
Across  an  almost  treeless  plain  was  visible  for  miles  the 
great  temple,  —  to  Buddhists  sacred  as  to  eastern  Chris- 
tians the  Holy  Sepulchre.  One  wonders  that  such  a  struc- 
ture should  arise  far  from  any  city,  and  in  a  region  that 


THE  TEMPLE  AT  GAYA  259 

could  never  have  been  populous.  The  spot  must  have  been 
genuinely  associated  with  Sakyamuni.  The  temple  itself  is 
surrounded  by  the  poppy,  —  the  plant  that  can  surround 
the  brain  with  insubstantial  visions,  or  sometimes  bring  to 
insomnia  and  pain  their  Nirvana.  Also  there  is  the  Mowa- 
tree,  with  its  feathery  flower,  which  bears  grape-like  fruit ; 
this  mixed  with  jaggree  (molasses)  and  steamed  yields  an 
intoxicating  liquor.  Castor  oil  trees,  too,  abound.  These 
nasty  trees,  —  did  the  evil  Mara  plant  them,  after  his 
failure  to  subdue  Buddha,  to  suck  away  sap  from  the  Bo- 
trees  ?  Of  these  not  one  could  I  discover. 

(The  only  edifice  at  Gaya  larger  than  the  temple  is  the 
prison  (English)  in  which  the  malefactors  of  many  regions 
are  incarcerated.  I  was  told  there  were  in  it  then  (1884) 
four  thousand  prisoners.) 

My  reader  will  remember  that  the  young  Prince  Sakya, 
overwhelmed  by  seeing  the  agonies  of  the  world,  repelled 
by  the  pious  fables  and  phantasms  supplementing  the 
tortures  of  nature,  fled  from  his  father's  palace,  and 
wandered  away  to  a  lonely  spot  to  try  and  think  out  the 
truth  of  things.  Ancient  tradition  places  here,  where 
the  oldest  Buddhist  temple  in  the  world  stood,  the  Bo- 
tree  under  which  he  sat  on  the  grass,  and  attained  the 
"  enlightenment  "  that  gave  him  the  title  "  Buddha." 

The  work  on  the  temple  was  not  yet  completed.  The 
original  plan  of  the  central  edifice  was  made  out  by  the 
studies  in  India  architecture  of  Dr.  Rajendralala  Mitra, 
and  was  nearly  finished.  But  the  buildings  connected  with 
this  yellow  tower-like  temple  —  two  hundred  feet  high  — 
had  covered  several  acres,  and  the  ground  was  strewn  with 
their  fragments.  These  annexes  can  never  be  restored. 
Sir  William  Hunter  had  given  me  a  note  to  the  English 
engineer  employed  by  the  Asiatic  Society,  Mr.  J.  D.  Beg- 


260  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

ler,  who  introduced  me  to  a  learned  Hindu,  Gopel  Chun- 
der  Mokerjee,  and  a  Buddhist  priest,  Mahont  Hammreinjal. 
With  these  I  examined  the  many  small  figures  and  sym- 
bols with  which  every  square  foot  of  the  locality  was 
covered.  But  before  doing  this  I  examined  the  footprints 
of  Buddha  in  the  neighbourhood,  of  which  there  were 
about  twenty.  They  were  all  unnaturally  large,  one  being 
two  feet  long,  and  the  toes  all  of  one  size  except  the  big 
toe,  which  was  slightly  longer  than  the  others.  There  is 
a  Buddha  between  two  women,  to  whom  he  holds  out  his 
hands,  in  the  palm  of  each  being  a  round  mark  with  a  dot 
in  the  centre. 

The  most  holy  spot  was  that  where  the  Bo-tree  is  sup- 
posed to  have  grown.  It  is  about  ten  yards  from  the  tem- 
ple, and  the  deep  space  between  was  covered  over.  On 
the  site  was  a  marble  platform  inscribed  "  Buddhawasse 
2427,"  and  beneath  a  statement  declaring  it  the  place 
of  the  Master's  illumination.  On  it  were  sculptured  the 
"  grand  beings  "  who  came  with  offerings  —  all  human. 
Five  candles  were  burning  before  this  sacred  spot.  A 
company  of  Burmese  pilgrims  present  had  laid  fresh  lotus 
flowers  on  the  marble,  and  gone  off  to  bathe  in  the  sacred 
tank.  Far  away  I  saw  a  solitary  Moslem,  one  of  the  work- 
men, kneeling  on  his  mat  towards  Mecca.  The  pilgrims 
had  tappy  faces  like  those  of  children.  I  remember  when 
first  gazing  on  the  huge  bronze  Buddha  in  South  Ken- 
sington Museum  a  lady  approached  with  her  little  daugh- 
ter, to  whom  she  explained  what  a  good  man  he  was.  The 
child,  after  some  silence,  said :  "  How  I  would  like  to 
climb  up  and  sit  in  his  lap!  I  might  get  some  of  his 
goodness ! "  She  was  the  little  sister  of  these  pilgrims, 
journeying  far  to  nestle  close  to  the  beloved  one. 

In  conversing  with  Mr.  Begler  I  asked  him  if  he  had 


BUDDHA'S  BO-TREE  261 

found  any  Bo-tree  (Ficus  religiosa}  in  the  vicinity,  as  it 
appeared  improbable  (although  any  tree  may  be  a  Bo-tree) 
that  the  legend  should  be  located  where  there  were  none. 
He  smiled,  and  said  he  would  confide  to  me  a  discovery 
made  that  week.  He  then  took  me  out  to  the  covered 
place  adjoining  the  marble,  unlocked  a  door  of  the  little 
shanty,  and  there  showed  me  the  branching  roots  of  what 
must  have  been  an  enormous  tree.  The  roots  branched 
downward  several  yards  from  the  sacred  spot ;  they  looked 
like  cork,  but  were  perfectly  traceable.  He  desired  me 
not  to  mention  the  discovery  at  Gaya ;  were  it  known,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  restrain  the  pilgrims  from  tearing 
up  the  whole  bank  for  bits  of  the  root. 

About  the  middle  of  the  third  century  before  our  era 
the  great  King  Asoka  came  on  a  pilgrimage  to  this  spot 
because  of  this  Bod  hi  Tree,  or  Tree  of  Knowledge,  under 
which  his  adopted  Lord  Buddha  had  sat.  He  caused  a 
monastery  to  be  established  here,  and  devoted  much  of 
his  wealth  to  embellish  the  tree  and  monastery.  His  queen 
became  jealous  of  the  tree,  and  also  troubled  because  her 
gods  were  neglected,  and  employed  a  secret  agent  to  de- 
stroy the  tree  by  "  sorcery."  Asoka  was  so  inconsolable 
that  his  queen  got  the  "  sorceress  "  to  resuscitate  this  Tree 
of  Knowledge.  But  the  Banyan  of  Ignorance  has  so  over- 
grown Christendom  in  the  ages  that  many  of  us  can 
remember  the  time  when  Buddha  began  to  be  talked 
about  in  Europe  and  America.  My  old  friend  Mrs.  Man- 
ning, who  resided  for  some  years  in  Bengal,  and  wrote 
an  admirable  book  on  "Ancient  and  Mediaeval  India" 
(1869),  says  that  "  not  until  the  year  1837,  in  which  Mr. 
James  Priusep  deciphered  the  written  character  of  King 
Asoka's  edicts,  was  anything  known  of  the  Buddhism  of 
ancient  India."  The  religious  and  moral  sentiment  about 


262  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

Buddha  began  yet  later,  but  so  rapidly  did  it  grow  that 
the  same  English  generation  first  interested  in  that  reli- 
gion witnessed  the  reconstruction  by  their  government  of 
this  first  Buddhist  temple. 

Vast  and  imposing  as  it  is,  the  original  edifice  was 
thrice  as  large,  as  is  proved  by  the  acres  of  fragments 
that  defy  all  architectural  speculation.  That  this  colossal 
temple  preceded  the  cathedrals  of  Europe  by  a  thousand 
years  is  explained  by  the  fact  that  Christendom  was  para- 
lyzed by  the  expectation  of  the  end  of  the  world  at  that 
period. 

The  ancient  Hindu  temples  are  pretty  but  small, — 
large  and  embellished  shrines.  The  religion  of  the  sects 
that  make  what  is  called  Hinduism  is  domestic ;  the  so- 
called  temples  are  not  constructed  for  sermons  or  any 
services  to  attract  the  people.  There  is  no  desire  to  con- 
vert anybody,  —  no  propaganda.  To  placate  some  invis- 
ible ghost  or  demon  who,  if  his  or  her  oblations  are 
neglected,  may  do  the  people  some  mischief,  these  shrines 
and  altars  with  their  decorated  domes  were  erected.  The 
legends  of  these  phantasms  were  transmitted  orally,  and 
they  too  were  embellished,  so  that  the  masses  learned 
them  by  means  of  dramas,  —  miracle  plays.  But  this  new 
missionary  movement  called  Buddhism  was  a  preaching 
and  teaching  sect.  Around  this  edifice,  towering  up  as 
a  landmark  for  pilgrims,  were  hospitals  for  men  and  ani- 
mals, monasteries,  a  college  -for  teachers  like  that  near 
Colombo,  and  no  doubt  a  theatre  for  rehearsing  the  legends 
of  Buddha  and  his  disciples.  Hence  the  acres  of  fragments. 

And  it  is  the  great  secular  power  in  India  —  England 
—  that  rebuilds  the  temple  which  the  grand  secularist, 
King  Asoka,  founded! 

But  this  first  temple  of  Buddha  cannot  be  reconstructed : 


DR.  MITRA'S  LETTER  263 

a  large  proportion  of  the  original  stones  —  among  them 
many  finely-carved  stupas — are  strewn  about  the  field. 
They  symbolize  the  debris  of  Buddha  and  his  religion 
long  strewn  about  the  world  —  China,  Japan,  Burmah,  also 
now  about  Christendom  —  to  be  fitted  into  sects  and  sys- 
tems of  their  own.  I  went  off  with  a  beautiful  little  stupa 
presented  to  me  by  the  engineer,  on  which  is  a  seated 
Buddha  with  every  line  as  true  as  if  it  had  been  carved 
a  few  years  before  instead  of  two  thousand.  I  presented 
it  to  Dr.  Paul  Cams,  editor  of  "  The  Open  Court "  (Chi- 
cago),  out  of  respect  for  his  assiduous  efforts  to  diffuse 
knowledge  of  Buddhism  and  reverence  for  Buddha. 

I  feel  as  if  I  know  something  of  Zoroaster  and  of  Jesus, 
and  these  two  are  to  me  the  men  who  knew  the  true  reli- 
gion. The  real  Buddha  is  more  dim ;  but  at  Gaya  the 
thought  of  that  young  prince  burdened  with  the  sorrows 
and  delusions  of  mankind  reached  far  down  in  me  and 
touched  some  subconscious  source  of  tears  and  love  for 
the  man,  and  I  longed  to  clasp  his  knees. 

I  at  once  wrote  to  Rajendralala  Mitra,  LL.  D.,  at  Cal- 
cutta, about  the  calcined  root.  I  also  mentioned  my  con- 
versation with  a  Buddhist  who  had  not  quite  met  my 
question  why,  if  existence  be  an  evil,  Buddhists  should, 
by  bringing  children  into  the  world,  deprive  them  of  the 
Nirvana  of  non-existence.  I  give  an  extract  from  Dr. 
Mitra's  answer :  — 

When  I  examined  the  mound  which  marked  the  site  of 
the  Bodhi  Tree,  it  consisted  of  such  a  miscellaneous  mass 
of  rubbish,  broken  pottery,  kitchen  midden,  cinders,  etc., 
that  I  could  not  make  any  use  of  it  for  historical  purposes. 
The  mound  was  moreover  at  the  time  all  but  intact,  and  I 
was  not  at  liberty  to  dig  into  it.  Mr.  Begler  carted  away 
the  whole  of  it,  and  therefore  had  full  opportunity  to  study 
the  charred  root  in  situ,  and  when  he  publishes  his  report 


264  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

we  shall  be  in  a  position  to  know  whether  the  said  root  is 
a  part  of  the  tree  which  was  burnt  down  by  the  Hindus 
or  only  the  charred  debris  of  kitchen  fuel. 

I  am  not  surprised  that  the  idea  should  have  struck  you 
about  the  antecedent  Nirvana  of  an  unborn  child.  Start- 
ing as  you  must  from  the  European  dogma  of  a  first  crea- 
tion, the  corollary  follows  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  Scho- 
penhauer tried  to  get  over  it  by  putting  down  marriage. 
The  Sankhyas,  the  Yogis,  and  the  Buddhists  of  my  coun- 
try felt  the  difficulty  quite  as  much,  but  they  did  not  yield 
to  it.  The  ideas  of  blotting  out  creation  by  abstaining 
from  marriage  seemed  to  them  to  be  too  childish  to  be  re- 
cognized as  a  principle  of  philosophy,  and  they  rose  far 
above  it.  They  hold  that  where  everything  is  governed 
by  laws,  immutable  and  eternal,  it  is  absurd  to  think  of 
first  creation  under  a  personal  agency,  however  supernat- 
ural and  transcendental  we  may  choose  to  assume  it.  What 
is  happening  every  day  now  must  have  happened  in  the 
past  without  a  limit,  and  the  world  therefore  exists  from 
eternity;  and  inasmuch  as  every  action,  every  dream, 
every  idea,  every  conception,  leaves  a  mark  or  impression 
or  residuum  on  the  field  of  the  mind,  the  mind  of  the  un- 
born child  is  not  and  cannot  be  in  Nirvana  —  it  is  always 
under  the  influence  of  the  impressions  or  residua  of  its 
former  births  or  terms  of  existences,  and  the  will  to  live 
and  multiply  is  inherent  in  it.  This  theory  of  course  in- 
volves a  regressus  ad  infinitum,  but  our  people  do  not  ad- 
mit that  to  be  a  logical  defect.  It  requires,  moreover,  the 
theory  of  metempsychosis,  and  that  forms  the  corner-stone 
of  all  Hindu  systems,  except  that  of  the  Chorvakas.  The 
theory  of  residua  may  at  first  sight  appear  very  like  that 
of  predestination,  but  in  reality  it  is  not  so.  The  one  im- 
plies an  irresistible  and  never  failing  law  of  sequences, 
every  act  must  be  followed  by  its  corresponding  fruit,  — 
an  inevitable  scald  after  dipping  the  fingers  in  boiling 
water,  —  whereas  the  other  assumes  an  extraneous  supe- 
rior governing  power  which  settles  beforehand  in  an  ar- 
bitrary and  capricious  manner  what  will  happen  hereafter, 
—  the  fates  writing  down  that  a  particular  person  is  to 
have  his  finger  scalded  at  such  a  time,  however  cautious 


STUPA 


A  PARABLE   OF  THE  SOUL  265 

lie  may  be,  or  whatever  precautions  he  may  take  to  avoid 
such  a  contingency. 

It  was  not  to  the  merely  unborn  child  that  I  had 
referred,  but  to  the  creation  of  an  embryonic  germ  of 
being  where  none  exists.  Schopenhauer  is  the  only  pessi- 
mistic writer  who  ever  faced  that  question.  With  him  the 
youth  and  maid  falling  in  love  are  the  traitors,  but  for 
whom  the  great  mistake  of  the  universe  —  consciousness 
—  would  be  remedied,  and  the  misery  of  life  end. 

For  the  rest,  Dr.  Mitra's  letter  shows  that  the  seating 
of  Buddha  side  by  side  with  Juggenauth  in  the  popular 
festivals  of  India  corresponds  with  a  union  of  Brahman 
and  Buddhist  philosophies  in  learned  minds.  It  is  a  con- 
solation to  those  who,  amid  theories  ever  shifting,  fix  their 
eyes  on  human  happiness  as  the  fruit  by  which  the  reli- 
gious Trees  are  to  be  judged,  that  in  the  religions  seem- 
ingly most  incongruous  the  peoples  find  similar  satisfaction. 

A  philosophic  Hindu  in  whose  mind  Brahmanism, 
Buddhism,  and  Jainism  blended  described  to  me  in  a 
parable  the  condition  of  the  individual  soul :  a  frog 
swallows  a  gem ;  by  geologic  changes  the  frog  is  imbedded 
in  mud,  the  mud  hardens  to  rock,  the  rock  overwhelmed 
by  an  avalanche  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  interior  of  a 
mountain.  The  pessimistic  philosophy  said  that  to  reach 
that  gem  many  kalpas  are  needed.  A  kalpa  means  the 
time  that  would  be  required  for  a  man  striking  a  mountain 
with  a  silk  handkerchief  once  an  hour  to  wear  that  moun- 
tain away.  All  the  religions  of  the  great  teachers  rest  on 
schemes  for  perforating  the  mountain  and  reaching  the 
frog  with  the  gem  inside  it. 

My  Hindu  philosopher's  parable  has  recurred  to  me 
at  times  as  illustrating  the  impossibility  of  ever  rescuing 
mankind  from  irrational  systems.  That  which  never 


266  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

entered  into  them  by  reason  cannot  be  got  out  of  them  by 
reason.  It  would  require  a  kalpa  to  get  even  the  learned 
free  from  every  moral  and  social  heritage  from  the  dogmas 
they  discredit ;  and  for  one  I  would  be  glad  to  see  these 
practical  sequdce  exchanged  for  ceremonial  and  meta- 
physical superstitions  which  have  become  comparatively 
harmless  abstractions.  Evolutionary  forces  steadily  make 
dogmas  academic,  but  it  is  at  the  cost  of  developing  out 
of  what  George  Sand  called  "  les  vertus  austeres  de  la 
mediocrite  "  a  moral  inquisition  more  fatal  to  human  hap- 
piness and  ethical  progress  than  the  old  anti-heretical 
inquisition. 

My  first  morning  at  Benares  was  passed  on  a  barge 
witnessing  the  immersions  in  the  Ganges, — a  much  multi- 
plied reproduction  of  the  baptism  of  our  coloured  folk  in 
the  Rappahannock,  which  I  used  to  witness  in  boyhood. 

Every  time  a  priest  immersed  a  person  he  threw  a  little 
water  with  his  hand  towards  the  sun,  and  the  baptized  one 
took  a  sip  of  the  water.  My  guide  was  a  Moslem  and  said, 
"  Drinking  cholera."  He  also  inveighed  against  the  cre- 
mation of  dead  bodies  going  on  at  one  point,  and  was 
amazed  to  find  that  I  approved  of  it. 

The  pleasantest  scene  was  the  "  Widow's  Ghat."  These 
pretty  young  dames,  not  far  from  the  spot  where  they 
would  once  have  been  burnt  with  their  husbands,  were 
reclining  on  their  Ghat  (marble  stair  to  the  river)  and 
disporting  themselves  merrily  in  the  water,  and,  being 
apart  from  the  crowd,  had  no  need  of  garments.  That  they 
were  visible  from  our  barges  concerned  them  not.  They 
poised  on  their  marble  like  light  bronze  statues,  and  their 
loud  laughter  was  musical  across  the  water. 

The  Ganges  is  the  Hindu  Jordan,  and  Benares  beside 
it  is  the  Hindu  Jerusalem.  It  is  the  City  of  Temples; 


MONKEY  TEMPLE  AT  BENARES        267 

its  only  trade  is  in  gods.  Its  chief  god  is  Siva,  the  De- 
stroyer—  properly  so,  for  the  Ganges  is  there  a  sewer, 
and  as  each  pilgrim  must  drink  some  of  the  liquid  cholera, 
disease  is  diffused  far  and  wide.  They  have  a  famous 
well  —  the  Well  of  Knowledge  —  of  whose  waters  hun- 
dreds were  drinking,  though  to  my  unbelieving  nostril 
the  stench  of  it  was  insupportable.  I  journeyed  through 
the  temples  all  day,  along  with  my  Moslem  interpreter, 
who  was  scandalized  by  my  purchases  of  little  gods  and 
goddesses,  which  he  carried  with  reluctance.  I  am  not 
sure  whether  his  trouble  was  due  to  fears  for  his  soul  in 
handling  such  "idols,"  or  jealousy  that  his  idolatrous 
neighbours  should  have  the  triumph  of  western  patronage 
of  their  religion.  He  did  not  fail  to  inform  me  that  there 
was  only  one  God. 

I  was  much  interested  in  the  Monkey  Temple.  Before 
I  was  holy  enough  to  enter  it  a  priest  came  out  and  threw 
a  wreath  of  yellow  flowers  around  my  neck.  Then  a  boy 
brought  a  salver  of  sweet  things  with  which  I  was  to  feed 
the  monkeys.  The  multitudinous  monkeys  came  from  roof, 
cornice,  holes,  corners,  altars, —  several  hundreds.  Some 
did  not  come  at  all,  but  eyed  me  curiously  or  with  an  air 
of  superiority.  I  read  clearly  in  the  eyes  of  one  venerable 
chimpanzee  his  explanation  that  they  considered  them- 
selves in  their  place  and  me  out  of  mine.  Those  that  came 
ate  the  sugar-plums  lazily.  They  were  of  many  varieties 
and  colours.  One  large  patriarchal  personage  took  a  cake, 
but  did  not  eat  it ;  he  gazed  at  me  steadily  a  long  time, 
and  I  returned  the  gaze.  I  perceived  that  he  was  a  Solo- 
mon of  his  race.  In  some  way  he  conveyed  to  me  a  query 
why  I  should  consider  myself  and  other  men  the  higher 
development  of  monkeys,  rather  than  monkeys  should  be 
regarded  as  evolved  men.  He  must  have  read  my 


268  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

thoughts,  for  at  that  moment  I  was  thinking  that  the 
religious  observances  I  had  been  witnessing  were  those 
representing  the  ancient  religion  of  chimpanzees,  and  that 
men  had  kept  it  up,  but  taken  away  from  the  original 
founders  all  their  temples  except  this  one.  But  this  sim- 
ial  Solomon  gave  me  a  new  idea  ;  namely,  that  these  mon- 
keys were  once  men,  and  found  themselves  so  oppressed 
by  the  priestly  powers  and  degraded  by  the  superstitions 
that  they  had  concluded  to  evolve  into  monkey  forms. 
They  could  thus  enjoy  the  services  and  sweetmeats  of  the 
priesthood  without  participating  in  their  ceremonies. 

In  my  pretty  little  hotel  at  Benares  I  began  a  series  of 
papers,  afterwards  published  in  "  The  Open  Court "  under 
the  title,  "Chats  with  a  Chimpanzee."  Every  morning 
began  with  a  visit  to  this  delightful  Temple  of  the  Mon- 
keys. 

I  made  a  delightful  excursion  from  Benares  to  the 
"  Deer  Park,"  which  Rhys  Davids  speaks  of  as  the  deer- 
forest  where  Buddha  passed  much  of  his  time.  But  I 
had  also  heard  a  conjecture  that  it  was  there  that  the 
courtesan  Ambapali  (or  Amrapali)  resided,  —  the  most 
romantic  figure  in  the  Buddha  legend,  and  under  the 
name  of  Magdalene  the  most  romantic  figure  in  Chris- 
tian legends.  Ambapali  is  spoken  of  in  the  most  ancient 
account  as  "the  courtesan  of  Vaisali."  But  where  was 
Vaisali  ?  In  Eugene's  Burnouf 's  "  Introduction  a  1'his- 
toire  du  Buddhisme  indien,"  vol.  i,  p.  76  (edition  of 
1876),  there  is  a  footnote  (2)  showing  that  Cosma  had  lo- 
cated Vais'ali  near  Allahabad,  and  Hamilton  near  Patna, 
— Burnouf  himself  inclining  to  the  latter  opinion.  The 
site  being  thus  undetermined,  why  may  not  one  suppose 
that  if  Buddha  loved  this  Deer  Park,  and  made  it  the 
headquarters  of  his  fraternity,  it  was  because  the  castle 


VAISALI  269 

and  park  were  presented  to  him  for  that  purpose  by  the 
famous  courtesan  ?  But  was  there  any  city  or  realm  of 
Vaisali  (or  Vesali,  as  Rhys  Davids  writes  it,  or  Belasi, 
as  Hamilton  writes  it)  ?  In  the  old  Tibetan  (Sanscrit) 
tale,  "Prince  Jivaka,"  it  is  said:  "Only  in  Vaisali  did 
the  people  rule.  .  .  .  There  were  three  districts  in  Vaisali. 
In  the  first  district  were  7000  houses  with  golden  towers, 
in  the  middle  district  were  14,000  with  silver  towers,  and 
in  the  last  district  were  21,000  houses  with  copper  towers. 
In  these  lived  the  upper,  the  middle,  and  the  lower 
classes  according  to  their  position.  The  people  of  Vaisali 
had  made  it  a  law  that  a  daughter  born  in  the  first  dis- 
trict could  marry  only  in  the  first  district,  not  in  the  sec- 
cond  or  third  ;  that  one  born  in  the  middle  district  could 
marry  only  in  the  first  and  second  ;  but  that  one  born  in 
the  last  district  could  marry  in  any  one  of  the  three  ; 
moreover,  that  no  marriage  was  to  be  contracted  outside 
Vaisali,  and  that  a  woman  recognized  as  a  pearl  among 
women  should  not  be  married  to  any  one,  but  should 
appertain  to  the  people  for  common  enjoyment." 

In  search  after  such  a  city  is  one  trying  to  locate  Bun- 
yan's  Vanity  Fair  or  the  Vale  of  Humility  ?  Is  Vaisali 
built  out  of  visal,  which  means  "  meeting  of  lovers,"  *'  sex- 
ual intercourse  "  ?  or  related  to  bazar  (bazan  Tci  methai,  — 
"  bazar  sweetmeats  "  being  a  proverbial  phrase  for  the 
demi-monde)  ?  I  can  get  so  much  out  of  Fallon's  Hindu- 
stani-English Dictionary,  but  have  not  the  knowledge 
to  pursue  the  point,  which  may  be  dealt  with  in  works  I 
have  not  read.  The  fairly  historical  thing  is  that  a  fa- 
mous courtesan  presented  Buddha  and  his  disciples  with 
her  mansion  and  park,  and  as  it  is  not  likely  that  they 
could  have  come  in  possession  of  this  Deer  Park  except 
by  a  donation,  I  moved  about  it  reverently ;  having  long 


270  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

ago  formed  the  habit  of  saying  cherchez  la  femme,  not 
when  a  disaster  is  to  be  accounted  for,  but  when  the 
source  of  a  great  inspiration  and  character  is  sought. 
The  narrative  is  (condensed)  as  follows  :  — 
Hearing  of  Buddha  as  the  wisest  of  men,  Ambapali 
started  in  her  chariot  with  a  grand  escort  to  visit  him. 
Arriving  after  a  long  journey  at  the  place,  she  sat  near 
Buddha  and  listened.  When  his  discourse  had  ended,  she 
approached  and  desired  that  he  would,  when  he  came  to 
her  region,  take  his  meal  in  her  house.  To  this  Buddha 
consented,  and  Ambapali  journeyed  to  her  home.  Mean- 
while the  princes  of  her  neighbourhood  arrived  and  pre- 
sented their  invitations,  but  Buddha  told  them  that  so 
long  as  he  was  in  their  region  his  sojourn  would  be  in 
the  house  of  the  courtesan  Ambapali.  The  princes  said 
to  each  other,  "  The  Mango  Girl  has  got  ahead  of  us  !  " 
According  to  existing  etiquette  one  who  held  an  engage- 
ment to  give  a  feast  to  any  personage  might  transfer  it  to 
another  host.  The  princes  therefore  overtook  the  chariot 
of  Ambapali  and  offered  her  a  large  sum  to  give  up  to 
them  the  right  of  entertaining  Buddha.  She  told  them 
that  she  would  not  surrender  her  privilege ;  and  when 
they  went  on  to  pile  up  the  amount  of  gold  they  would 
give  for  it,  she  answered  that  not  if  they  should  offer  her 
their  united  kingdoms  would  she  yield. 

On  the  appointed  day  Buddha  came  with  his  imme- 
diate disciples  into  the  palace  of  the  beautiful  courtesan. 
Ambapali  personally  waited  on  them,  the  feast  being, 
however,  simple,  —  rice  and  fruit.  Afterwards  Buddha 
delivered  a  discourse  in  which  there  is  no  allusion  to 
Ambapali's  mode  of  life.1 

1  "  Great  is  the  fruit,  great  the  advantage  of  earnest  contemplation  when 
get  round  with  upright  conduct.   Great  is  the  fruit,  great  the  advantage  of 


AMBAPiLI  271 

Ambapali  at  once  conveyed  to  Buddha  and  his  dis- 
ciples a  complete  title  to  her  mansion  and  park.  Calling 
her  chariot  and  attendants,  she  drove  away,  and  passed 
out  of  history. 

Nothing  is  said  of  Ambapali's  "  conversion,"  and  there 
is  no  intimation  that  she  abandoned  her  "vocation."  In 
a  country  of  infant  marriages,  always  matters  of  negotia- 
tion, it  is  probable  that  a  great  ethical  teacher  might 
regard  a  courtesan  as  not  morally  inferior  to  those  cere- 
monially married.  At  Gaya  I  observed  near  the  temple  a 
unique  "  Bodisata,"  — a  finely  carved  stupa  representation 
of  a  young  woman,  seated  in  the  posture  of  a  Buddha. 
There  are  a  good  many  women  mentioned  in  early  annals 
as  having  become  fervent  disciples  of  Buddha,  but  the 
donor  of  the  mansion  and  park  remains  in  early  oriental 
folk-tales  always  the  splendid  courtesan. 

Dr.  Rhys  Davids  told  me  that  no  early  Buddhist 
writer  seems  to  have  considered  any  defence  necessary, 
whether  of  Ambapali  or  of  Buddha's  silence  concerning 
her  life.  But  in  the  Tibetan  tale,  "  Prince  Jivaka,"  it  is 
stated  that  she  was  made  a  courtesan  by  a  law  of  Vaisali, 
though  she  imposed,  as  was  her  right,  rigorous  and  costly 
conditions.  She  was  not  a  common  mortal,  but  a  kind  of 
dryad ;  she  came  out  of  a  mango-tree  and  was  therefore 
called  Ambapali. 

In  a  famous  play  of  the  ancient  Hindu  theatre,  "  The 
Toy-Cart,"  the  heroine  (Vasantasena)  is  a  courtesan.  She 
lives  in  a  palace  of  great  splendour,  is  noted  for  her 
charities,  and  by  her  boundless  wealth  raises  a  Brahman 

intellect  when  set  round  with  earnest  contemplation.  The  mind  set  round 
with  intelligence  is  freed  from  the  great  evils,  —  that  is  to  say,  from  sen- 
suality, individuality  [egoism?],  from  delusion  and  from  ignorance."  — 
Discourse  in  AmbapdlCi  grove,  Buddhist  Sutras,  tr.  by  J.  W.  Rhys  Davids, 
p.  34. 


272  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

and  his  family  (wife  and  child)  out  of  extreme  poverty. 
She  becomes  enamoured  of  this  Brahman  (Charudatta). 
Seeing  his  little  child  with  an  earthen  toy-cart,  she  sub- 
stitutes a  cart  of  gold ;  she  sends  a  string  of  diamonds 
to  the  Brahman's  wife,  with  the  message,  "  I  am  Charu- 
datta's  handmaid  and  your  slave."  It  is  returned,  with 
the  words,  "  You  are  favoured  by  the  son  of  my  lord ;  it 
is  not  proper  for  me  to  accept  this  necklace.  Know  that 
the  only  ornament  I  value  is  my  husband."  Eventually 
the  wife  meeting  the  courtesan,  says,  "  Welcome,  happy 
sister ! "  This  is  the  formula  for  recognizing  a  "  new 
wife ; "  they  embrace,  and  a  veil  is  thrown  over  Vasan- 
tasena  to  mark  that  "she  is  no  longer  a  public  char- 
acter." But  she  does  not  appear  to  have  been  quite  that, 
and  is  first  seen  escaping  from  a  brutal  prince. 

Mrs.  Manning,  in  her  account  of  the  play,  thinks  the 
dramatic  effect  would  be  better  if  it  ended  with  this  recog- 
nition of  Vasantasena  by  the  wife  and  child.  Probably  the 
original  drama  did  so  end,  and  the  rise  of  Buddhism  sug- 
gested the  complications  which  extend  the  play  to  ten 
acts.  The  courtesan  is  strangled  by  a  prince  she  had  re- 
buffed, and,  left  for  dead,  is  found  by  a  "  Sramana,"  or 
Buddhist  devotee.  This  man  had  been  a  gambler,  and 
having  lost  everything  at  dice  was  about  to  be  sold  as  a 
slave,  when  Vasantasena,  with  her  usual  generosity,  re- 
deems his  debt ;  whereon  he  renounces  gambling  and 
becomes  a  Buddhist  devotee.  He  arrives  just  as  the  cour- 
tesan is  recovering,  and  exclaims,  "  It  is  the  lady  Vasan- 
tasena, the  devoted  worshipper  of  Buddha,"  and  takes 
her  to  a  "  convent,  where  dwells  a  holy  sister." 

The  authorship  of  this  play  is  unknown.  It  opens  with 
the  manager's  announcement  that  its  author  was  a  King 
Sudraka,  "who  lived  a  hundred  years,  and  then  burnt 


LEGEND  OF  THE  MAGDALENE    273 

himself,  leaving  his  kingdom  to  his  son."  Its  present 
form  was  arranged  about  the  beginning  of  our  era,  but 
it  is  really  much  earlier.  Siva  and  Buddha  are  equally 
revered  in  it,  and  it  is  shown  that  both  Brahman  and 
Buddhist  regarded  a  "  courtesan  "  in  much  the  same  way 
as  a  "  concubine  "  of  Hebrew  antiquity.  Vasantasena  may 
be  a  "courtesan"  and  at  the  same  time  "the  devoted 
worshipper  of  Buddha." 

My  belief  is  that  in  the  narrative  of  Jesus  and  the 
woman  arrested  for  adultery,  the  words  "  sin  no  more " 
have  been  added  ;  for  though  he  said,  "  Neither  do  I  con- 
demn thee,"  the  words  seem  to  be  recalled  when  he  does 
condemn  her  for  sin.  At  any  rate,  there  is  not  the  slightest 
reproach  by  Jesus  of  the  woman  of  Samaria,  and  Edmond 
Rostand  in  "  La  Samaritaine  "  has  had  to  invest  her  with 
the  legend  of  the  Magdalene.  The  moral  system  in  both 
India  and  Judea  was  built  upon  the  priestly  system ;  it 
was  unreal  and  unjust  so  far  as  the  moral  sentiment  of 
simple  humanity  was  concerned  ;  and  a  very  great  thinker 
might  naturally  disregard  such  sacramental  arrangements 
just  as  George  Fox  and  the  Quakers  did,  who  preferred 
having  their  marriages  called  illegitimate  rather  than  be 
married  by  priests. 

In  France  the  Buddhist  legend  was  cleverly  taken  by 
Armand  Silvestre  to  disguise  a  romance  between  Jesus 
and  the  Magdalene.  In  the  tragedy  of  "  Izeyl "  Sarah 
Bernhardt  appeared  to  me  to  exceed  all  of  her  other  im- 
personations, except  her  "  La  Samaritaine."  The  heroine, 
with  a  Magdalene  make-up,  seeks  to  fascinate  Siddartha 
(a  Christ-like  make-up) ;  she  is  converted,  becomes  a 
penitent  devotee,  and  bestows  her  wealth  on  the  poor. 
But  Siddartha  (Buddha)  conceives  a  passionate  love  for 
her,  —  as  she  has  for  him,  —  and  it  is  Izeyl  who  with  a 


274  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

breaking  heart  and  at  cost  of  her  life  keeps  him  true  to 
his  great  "  cause,"  which  he  is  willing  to  desert  for  her  sake. 

The  most  noted  event  in  the  career  of  Ambapali  as  a 
courtesan  was  that  she  was  for  a  time  the  mistress  of 
Bimbisara,  the  renowned  king  of  Magadha.  The  Talmud 
says  that  Miriam  of  Magdala  derived  this  title  from  an 
ancient  city  which  was  destroyed  because  of  its  licentious- 
ness. The  king  of  Magadha  is  described  in  the  Kah-Gyur 
as  "  always  longing  after  strange  women,"  and  among 
his  intrigues  one  resembles  that  of  David  with  Bathsheba 
(though  the  husband  is  not  slain),  the  result  being  the 
birth  of  the  great  Scientific  (Solomonic  ?)  Javaka,  who 
healed  Buddha.  The  king  of  Magadha's  son  by  Amba- 
pali was  Prince  Abhaye  (the  Fearless).  Is  this  "  Ma- 
gadha "  the  origin  of  the  title  which  found  its  way  to  the 
lady  in  Jerusalem  ?  It  is  always  to  be  borne  in  mind  that 
there  is  nothing  in  the  New  Testament  suggesting  that 
she  had  ever  been  immoral  and  there  was  no  legend  of 
that  kind  during  the  first  two  centuries  of  our  era. 

Although  there  is  no  indication  that  Ambapali  became 
a  Buddhist  devotee,  the  king  of  Magadha,  Bimbisara, 
with  whom  she  was  associated,  was  converted,  and  he 
established  great  Buddhist  festivals  in  his  kingdom,  of 
which  Gaya  was  a  part.  At  these  festivals  —  as  shown  in 
the  Kah-Gyur  —  Buddhist  "  Mysteries  "  were  performed, 
and  it  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  famous  mistress  of 
the  king  ("  Amrapali,"  in  Magadha),  who  made  the  mag- 
nificent donation  to  Buddha,  was  a  figure  in  those  dramas. 
When  these  dramas,  acted  everywhere,  were  succeeded 
by  Christian  "  Mysteries,"  the  role  of  the  wealthy  cour- 
tesan who  endowed  Buddha  might  easily  pass  to  the 
wealthy  lady  of  Jerusalem  who  "  administered  to  him 
[Jesus,  in  some  versions  *  to  them ']  of  her  property." 


STORY  OF  BRAHMADATTA  275 

In  the  ancient  "  Mystery  "  of  "  Mary  Magdalene  "  she 
has  inherited  the  "  Castle  of  Maudleyn."  Her  beauty  and 
splendour  are  such  that  Satan  covets  them  for  his  own 
realm  and  summons  a  council  to  devise  her  seduction. 
This  corresponds  to  the  assembly  of  Vaisali  which  de- 
manded the  presence  of  Amrapali.  "  When  the  perfection 
of  her  youth  and  beauty  were  seen,"  they  cried,  "  This  is 
a  pearl  of  a  woman,  and  therefore  she  belongs  to  the 
enjoyments  of  the  people."  In  the  Christian  "  Mystery  " 
Satan  employs  the  seven  Capital  Sins  to  besiege  Mary 
Magdalene,  and  this  way  our  English  translators  were 
tempted  to  the  falsehood  of  importing  the  word  "  devils  " 
into  Luke  viii,  2. 

There  is  another  interesting  story  connected  with  Be- 
nares which  Mr.  R.  C.  Childers  gave  me,  saying  that  it 
was  traceable  to  the  sixth  century  before  our  era. 

There  was  once  a  king  of  Benares  named  Brahmadatta, 
whose  righteous  administration  of  justice  put  an  end  to 
litigation  in  his  kingdom,  and  left  him  time  to  turn  his 
attention  to  his  own  faults,  with  a  view  to  their  correc- 
tion. He  accordingly  questioned  first  his  own  retinue, 
then  the  public  officials,  then  the  citizens  of  Benares, 
then  the  suburban  inhabitants,  and  lastly,  mounting  his 
chariot,  he  drove  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  the 
land,  begging  all  whom  he  met  to  tell  him  his  faults.  But 
all  with  one  accord  told  him  only  of  his  virtues,  and  he 
was  returning  baffled  from  his  expedition,  when  in  a  nar- 
row defile  his  chariot  met  that  of  Mallika,  King  of  Kosala, 
who  was  bound  on  a  precisely  similar  mission.  It  at  once 
became  evident  that  one  of  the  chariots  must  make  way 
for  the  other,  and  the  charioteers  of  the  rival  monarchs 
commenced  a  dispute  for  the  precedence,  which  seemed 
hopeless  when  it  was  ascertained  that  neither  could  claim 
any  advantage  over  the  other  in  age,  wealth,  fame,  or 
military  power.  At  length,  however,  it  was  decided  that 
the  more  virtuous  should  have  the  precedence ;  and  the 


276  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

charioteer  of  King  Mallika,  challenged  to  describe  the 
virtues  of  his  royal  master,  replies  as  follows :  "  King 
Mallika  overthrows  the  strong  by  strength,  the  mild  by 
mildness ;  good  he  overcomes  with  good,  and  evil  with 
evil."  The  other  charioteer  said,  "  If  these  are  his  virtues, 
what  are  his  faults  ? "  Then  he  said  of  his  own  master, 
"  With  meekness  he  conquers  anger,  he  overcomes  evil 
with  good,  he  disarms  avarice  with  liberality,  and  the  liar 
with  truth."  Hearing  this,  Mallika  and  his  charioteer 
alight,  and  their  chariot  is  drawn  aside. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

Delhi  palaces  —  Pillar  of  Asoka —  The  Minar  Pillar  —  Parana  Keela  — 
The  Taj  at  Agra  —  Akbar  —  The  Parliament  of  Religions  —  Oriental 
ethics  —  The  Jehanara  mosque. 

AT  last  I  am  in  Delhi, —  cemetery  of  splendours.  Amid 
its  silent  palaces  the  fables  of  Saadi  are  written  in 
stone,  and  their  morals  pointed  in  minarets.  The  legend- 
ary Hall  of  Afrasiab,  where  the  spider  weaves  his  web, 
the  pleasure-dome  of  Mahmoud,  of  which  not  one  stone 
was  left  upon  another,  rise  as  thin  air  over  fields  strewn 
with  fine  fragments.  On  the  marble  vacancy  where  the 
Peacock  throne  once  stood  —  solid  gold,  inlaid  with  gems 
—  is  invisibly  set  the  inscription  of  Ferideen's  portico, 
"  The  world,  O  my  brother,  continues  not  to  any  one ;  place 
your  affections  on  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  and  that 
will  suffice.  Make  no  reliance,  neither  rest  upon  the  king- 
dom of  this  world,  seeing  how  many  like  thyself  it  hath 
nourished  and  killed.  When  the  soul  is  about  to  depart, 
what  is  difference  between  expiring  on  a  throne  or.  on  the 
bare  ground  ?  " 

My  guide  supposed  that  my  object  in  coming  to  Delhi 
was  to  see  the  locality  of  the  siege  of  1857  and  its  memo- 
rial monument,  "  110  feet  high,  built  at  a  cost  of  20,000 
rupees."  It  was  with  difficulty  that  I  made  him  understand 
my  slight  interest  in  that  little  affair,  and  my  deep  feeling 
about  the  neighbouring  Pillar  of  Asoka,  which  still  pub- 
lishes its  edicts  of  peace  and  good  will  to  men.  This  guide 
(Hindu)  told  me  with  some  feeling  that  the  British 
guns  had  broken  this  Pillar  of  Asoka  into  five  fragments. 


278  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

The  pieces  have  been  put  together  again  as  neatly  as 
possible,  and  the  pillar  stands  beside  the  modern  monu- 
ment in  a  lowly  way.  Time  has,  however,  better  spared 
the  "  Golden  Pillar."  Five  centuries  ago  legend  declared 
it  the  staff  of  Krishna,  which  could  not  be  removed  from 
Kumaon  till  the  Last  Day.  Ferozshah,  to  end  this  super- 
stition, removed  it  to  the  precincts  of  his  palace, —  a  palace 
now  visible  only  as  the  pedestal  of  Asoka's  Pillar,  which 
still  shines  golden  in  the  sunlight,  fulfilling  its  final  words, 
"  Let  this  religious  edict  be  engraved  on  stone  pillars  and 
stone  tablets,  that  it  may  endure  forever." 

In  a  mosque  its  keeper  showed  me  the  footprint  of 
Mahomed  Shah  neatly  carved  in  marble.  The  passion 
for  holy  footprints  has  gone  round  the  world ;  I  have 
seen  scores  —  footprints  of  Vishnu,  Siva,  Buddha,  Christ, 
St.  Thomas,  John  Wesley ;  and  the  general  impression  I 
have  derived  from  them  all  is  that  devotees  of  the  great 
are  apt  to  take  their  saints  au  pied,  —  at  their  lowest. 

One  morning  I  stumbled  on  a  curious  old  place,  where 
stood  "  the  bleeding  tree,"  beside  which  a  Hindu  was  keep- 
ing watch.  In  this  dead  trunk's  hollow  was  a  picture  of 
a  prince  with  silver  head,  —  the  Prince  Dara  beheaded  by 
his  brother  Aurungzeb,  —  and  beside  it  a  perpetual  lamp. 
The  tree  is  a  "  Neem,"  a  sacred  tree  among  the  Hindus. 
The.Mohammedans  repudiate  ancient  trees  or  relics,  but 
the  Hindu  atmosphere  is  too  strong  for  them. 

There  are  also  moral  relics  of  Moslem  supremacy.  At 
the  downfall  of  their  reign  the  harems  of  these  palaces 
were  suddenly  emptied.  The  helpless  beauties  of  famous 
courts  were  thrown  upon  the  streets  to  make  a  communal 
harem.  They  whose  predecessors  were  the  favourites  of 
shahs  and  viziers  flaunted  their  seductive  beauty  along 
the  balconies,  and  I  saw  in  the  streets  a  parade,  with  music, 


DELHI  279 

of  young  women  said  to  be  of  this  class.  Occasionally 
they  may  be  seen  dancing  near  the  gate  of  the  great 
mosque,  especially  on  Fridays,  when  thousands  of  Moslems 
repair  thither  for  prayer. 

I  saw  a  decorated  little  boy  mounted  on  an  orna- 
mental pony,  attended  by  priests  and  a  band  of  music,  on 
his  way  to  the  marriage  altar,  followed  by  a  closed  palan- 
quin, whose  smallness  disclosed  how  young  must  be  the 
bride  of  that  little  lord. 

I  had  a  hot-air  bath  in  Delhi ;  the  room  was  low-vaulted, 
with  mosaic  floor,  and  like  those  portrayed  in  ancient  Per- 
sian pictures.  But  I  could  not  get  the  fuller's  earth  which 
inspired  Saadi's  fable.  In  a  bath  at  Damascus  they  gave 
him  fuller's  earth  (long  wrapt  in  rose-leaves),  and  he 
asked  it  whether  it  was  of  heaven  or  earth,  so  sweet  was 
its  odour.  It  replied,  "  I  am  but  humble  clay,  but  some- 
time I  kept  company  with  the  rose."  Perfumes  are  still 
dear  to  the  Moslem,  Mohammed's  love  of  them  having 
given  freedom  to  this  kind  of  luxury. 

Old  Delhi  is  eleven  miles  distant  from  the  main  city. 
In  the  famous  pillar  Minar  (238  feet  and  1  inch)  are 
inscriptions  from  the  Koran  and  the  ninety  names  of 
Allah,  also  the  laudations  of  Mazoodeen  Abdul,  Muzafur 
Mahomed  Bin  Sam.  On  the  neighbouring  iron  pillar, 
one  Rajah  Dhava  is  compared  to  the  sun  and  moon.  Tra- 
dition has,  however,  been  uncomplimentary  enough  to 
associate  with  the  iron  pillar  the  fame  of  Rajah  Pithora, 
the  last  of  the  Hindu  sovereigns.  The  legend  is  that 
Rajah  Pithora,  having  consulted  the  Brahmans  as  to  the 
continuance  of  his  empire,  was  informed  that  if  he  sank 
an  iron  shaft  into  the  ground  he  might  pierce  the  head  of 
the  snake-god  Lishay,  who  supports  the  world,  and  then 
his  kingdom  would  last  forever.  Some  time  after  sinking 


280  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

the  shaft  the  Rajah  was  desirous  of  discovering  whether 
the  snake  had  been  touched,  and,  contrary  to  the  warning 
of  the  Brahmans,  had  the  pillar  taken  up.  The  end  of  it 
was  covered  with  blood,  and  the  Rajah  was  informed  that 
his  dynasty  would  soon  cease.  Although  the  pillar  was 
again  set  up,  the  charm  had  been  broken ;  Shahaboodeen 
took  Pithora's  life  and  kingdom,  and  thenceforth  no 
Hindu  king  has  reigned  in  Delhi. 

From  the  top  of  the  Minar  is  seen  an  interminable 
cemetery  of  sultans,  shahs,  and  sublime  courtiers.  A 
picture  of  splendid  desolation !  On  one  tomb  sat  a  kite, 
and  on  another  two  owls,  whose  ancestors  some  centuries 
ago  enabled  a  certain  poet  to  bring  a  shah  to  a  sense  of 
his  wickedness.  As  they  drove  past  a  ruin  the  shah  and 
his  court  poet  passed  two  owls  seated  on  the  ruin,  and  the 
shah  remarked  that  they  seemed  to  be  conversing.  The 
poet  said,  "  Yes,  and  I  can  understand  what  they  say." 
"  What  do  they  say  ?  "  asked  the  shah.  "  They  are  utter- 
ing the  praises  of  your  Majesty,  and  saying  that  so  long 
as  your  reign  continues,  they  will  never  want  for  ruined 
villages  in  which  to  house  themselves."  The  shah  took 
these  words  to  heart  and  mended  his  ways,  as  they  always 
do  in  fables. 

Near  old  Delhi  I  visited  the  tomb  of  the  poet  Khrus- 
roo,  at  the  side  of  which  stands  the  grander  mausoleum  of 
his  patron  Nizam-ooden,  —  supposed  founder  of  the  order 
of  devout  murderers  called  Thugs.  The  inhabitants  of 
one  village,  generally  avoided  by  tourists,  struck  me  as 
an  uncanny  set,  and  I  was  not  sorry  to  leave  their  neigh- 
bourhood. In  this  vicinity  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  find 
in  the  magistracy  a  young  gentleman  I  had  met  in  Cam- 
bridge University  (Mr.  Rennie).  His  office  was  in  the 
rehabilitated  tomb  of  some  old  shah.  He  drove  about 


THE   BROKEN  PITCHER  281 

with  me  during  the  morning,  and  I  learned  from  him 
that  petty  crime  among  the  natives  is  encouraged  by  the 
superiority  of  the  prisons  to  their  dwellings. 

The  hollow  tanks  of  the  neighbourhood  are  now  sunken 
and  stagnant  pools ;  where  pilgrims  once  washed  their 
sins  away  boys  now  earn  pice  by  making  frightful  leaps 
from  the  lofty  walls.  Having  seen  one  of  these  leaps,  I 
refused  the  request  of  others  to  witness  their  perform- 
ances, saying  to  my  guide,  "  I  do  not  wish  to  see  anything 
that  endangers  life."  He  replied,  "  But,  sir,  this  is  their 
life." 

In  driving  on  I  saw  a  picturesque  old  Hindu  with  a 
small  pitcher  of  yellow  clay  in  his  hand  near  an  old  well. 
Being  thirsty  after  a  long  drive,  I  made  my  driver  stop 
there  and  ask  for  a  draught  of  water.  The  old  Hindu 
made  me  obeisance,  and  from  the  bucket  he  had  just 
drawn  up  filled  the  little  pitcher  and  offered  it  to  me. 
When  I  had  quenched  my  thirst  and  handed  back  the 
pitcher,  he  tossed  it  on  the  ground  a  little  way  and  again 
made  obeisance.  My  guide  told  me  that  it  was  out  of 
respect,  and  I  have  many  a  time  seen  in  Europe  a  wine- 
glass broken  after  the  toast  to  some  great  man  or  his 
memory.  But  something  in  the  old  man's  proceeding 
made  me  doubt  this  interpretation.  I  bade  my  guide  tell 
him  that  I  was  sorry  the  pretty  little  vessel  was  broken, 
and  that  I  would  gladly  have  purchased  it  to  take  home 
with  me.  The  old  Hindu,  who  did  not  speak  English, 
said  to  my  guide  that  it  was  not  possible  on  account  of 
their  religion  that  he  or  any  of  his  family  should  drink 
out  of  a  vessel  that  had  been  used  by  a  stranger.  By 
"  religion"  he  really  meant  his  caste.  He  was  very  kindly 
and  polite,  and  requesting  me  to  wait  a  moment,  went  to 
his  house  near  by  and  brought  me  three  little  pieces  of 


282  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

different  shaped  vessels  of  baked  clay,  which  he  begged 
me  to  accept.  I  asked  my  driver  how  much  they  were 
worth  and  was  told  that  they  were  very  cheap.  I  offered 
the  old  man  a  rupee  for  each;  but  he  absolutely  refused 
to  receive  payment.  He  said  to  my  guide  that  it  was  a 
happiness  to  him  to  present  anything  that  he  could  to 
a  passing  traveller. 

Aladdin's  tower!  I  found  myself  childish  enough  to 
enjoy  most  the  association  of  Aladdin  with  the  finest 
piece  of  architecture  here.  The  association  of  Altomish, 
who  from  a  slave  became  emperor,  with  the  hero  of  the 
Wonderful  Lamp  was  arbitrary  of  course ;  but,  as  Talley- 
rand said,  facts  are  manageable.  "  The  unfinished  window 
of  Aladdin  "  is  fairly  represented ;  one  of  the  entrances 
of  the  superb  structure  had  lost  its  ornamental  edge. 

A  genuine  poetic  charm  invested  the  ancient  fortified 
village  Purana  Keela.  In  my  youth  Emerson  loaned  me 
the  Bhagavat  Gita  (Wilkins's  translation),  and  my  inter- 
est in  oriental  thought  began  with  the  dialogue  between 
Arjuna  and  Krishna.  Later  I  found  the  whole  story  of 
the  Mahabharata  finely  told  by  my  friend  Mrs.  Manning 
in  her  "  Ancient  and  Mediaeval  India."  Even  forty  years 
ago  one  had  to  search  out  what  is  now  accessible  to  all. 
It  was  thrilling  to  find  myself  at  the  pillared  gateway  of 
the  fortified  city,  traditionally  supposed  to  be  the  capital 
of  the  Pandavas  during  their  long  struggle  with  the  Ku- 
ravas.  Here  dwelt  Draupadi  and  her  five  husbands — the 
Pandu  princes.  From  these  gates  went  forth  Arjuna  him- 
self, driven  by  the  charioteer  who  presently  revealed 
himself  as  the  god  Krishna.  It  was  on  yonder  field  that 
the  hero  wept  and  declared  that  he  could  not  fight  against 
his  kindred,  when  the  charioteer,  throwing  off  his  dis- 
guise, uttered  to  him  those  wonderful  discourses  which 


LEGEND   OF  YUDHISHTHIRA  283 

have  become  Holy  Scriptures  to  the  mystical  oriental 
minds  turning  from  Hinduism.  It  was  around  these  still 
mighty  walls  that  the  gods  descended  to  take  part  in  the 
struggle ;  and  when  the  kingdom  of  the  Pandavas  was 
established,  here  was  the  scene  of  the  Golden  Age :  "  every 
subject  of  the  Rajah  Yudhishthira  was  pious ;  there  were 
no  liars,  no  thieves,  no  swindlers ;  there  were  no  droughts, 
no  floods,  no  locusts,  no  conflagrations,  no  foreign  in- 
vaders, and  no  parrots  to  eat  up  the  grain." 

It  was  from  this  place  that,  when  his  kingdom  was  lost 
by  dice,  Yudhishthira  with  his  wife  Draupadi  and  family 
went  to  wander  in  the  jungle  for  twelve  years.  One  by 
one  the  king's  companions  perished  by  the  way,  and 
Draupadi  herself.  He  was  alone  at  last,  with  only  his 
faithful  dog  to  keep  him  company.  He  comes  to  the  gate 
of  Indra.  The  King  of  Gods  meets  him  and  tells  him  that 
in  heaven  he  shall  find  again  his  brothers  and  his  wife. 
With  joy  Yudhishthira  is  about  to  enter,  when  Indra  drives 
away  his  dog.  Yudhishthira  cannot  part  from  this  faith- 
ful companion,  who  never  deserted  him,  and  brought 
game  from  the  forest,  though  starving  itself.  Indra  de- 
clares, "  My  heaven  hath  no  place  for  dogs,"  but  Yudhish- 
thira refuses  to  enter  heaven  unless  his  dog  may  enter 
also.  His  fidelity  to  the  faithful  animal  thus  having  been 
proved,  the  dog  himself  throws  off  his  disguise  and  ap- 
pears as  Yama,  King  of  Death.  All  the  pains  and  trials 
of  the  long  wandering  are  proved  to  be  illusions,  and  the 
trials  of  the  Pandavas  end  in  joy,  like  those  that  close 
the  kindred  drama  of  Job. 

Inside  the  vast  fortress  associated  with  the  poetic  le- 
gends (I  have  mentioned  but  one)  is  a  village  of  the  poor- 
est people  I  saw  anywhere  in  the  East.  Their  houses  are  like 
ant-hills,  with  little  curving  paths  running  between  them, 


284  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

and  my  guide  says,  "  Nobody  knows  how  they  manage  to 
live."  What  a  contrast  with  the  legendary  splendours 
connected  with  that  castle  and  fortress!  It  may  have 
been  partly  my  imagination  that  gave  the  men  and  wo- 
men their  aristocratic  air.  Several  women  appeared  whose 
features  were  not  unworthy  of  Draupadi  herself.  A  very 
handsome  little  boy  of  ten  summers  —  no  winters  seemed 
to  have  touched  him  —  volunteered  to  do  the  honours  of 
the  little  city  of  huts.  In  front  of  each  there  was  a  group 
of  busy  women;  I  did  not  encounter  a  beggar  there. 
The  only  edifice  of  importance  within  the  fortress  was  an 
ancient  mosque.  Workmen  were  engaged  in  repairing  it 
—  uby  order  of  the  government,"  I  was  told.  I  could  not 
help  thinking  that  the  old  mosque  might  well  enough  wait 
until  the  living  temples  around  it  were  better  housed. 
Such,  no  doubt,  would  have  been  the  decree  of  the  Bud- 
dhist Asoka,  whose  pillar,  with  its  humane  edicts,  shines 
against  the  blue  sky  as  I  leave  the  gates  of  this  castle,  so 
haunted  with  poetry  and  poverty. 

Let  that  day  be  marked  round  with  a  many-coloured 
pencil  of  light  when  I  first  saw  the  Taj !  For  that  beauti- 
ful dream  in  marble  stands  in  my  memory  tinted  with  the 
rose  of  dawn  beneath  which  I  first  beheld  it,  and  flushed 
with  the  soft  evening  sky  when  I  parted  from  it ;  and  be- 
tween the  dawn  and  the  moonrise,  as  I  returned  to  it  again 
and  again,  I  beheld  not  one  Taj  but  many.  As  the  statue 
of  Memnon  was  said  to  emit  music  when  the  sun  touched 
it,  one  may  say  without  fable  that  the  changing  sky  of  the 
day  brings  forth  varied  architectural  harmonies  from  the 
Taj.  Now  it  is  of  the  faintest  snow-blue  tint,  now  purest 
white,  and  again  pink-faint  in  its  response  to  dawn  or 
sunset. 

When  wandering  about  the  great  mosque-like  tombs 


THE  TAJ  AT  AGRA  285 

elsewhere  and  seeing  the  life  of  the  people  beside  them, 
it  seemed  painful  that  the  dead  should  sleep  in  palaces 
while  so  many  of  the  living  burrowed  in  mud  huts.  This 
feeling  did  not  mar  the  happiness  with  which  I  beheld  the 
Taj,  for  I  felt  that  Love  built  it  in  its  beauty  —  that  it 
had  here  created  a  mystical  rose  in  whose  light  and  joy 
all  the  living  find  a  fairer  life.  It  is  literally,  too,  as  well 
as  spiritually,  the  treasury  of  the  people  of  Agra.  A  young 
American  lady  I  saw  there  seemed  to  require  more  shades 
for  these  lines  of  light.  "Is  it  certain,"  she  said,  "en- 
tirely certain,  that  Shah  Jehan  built  it  for  love  of  his 
wife  ?  Was  he  not  thinking  of  himself  at  all  ?  Ah,  I  'm 
sure  he  married  somebody  else  before  his  queen's  monu- 
ment was  finished."  I  do  not  know  that  she  remembered 
the  fact  that  the  queen  begged  Shah  Jehan  not  to  marry 
again  and  "get  children  to  contend  with  hers  for  his 
favour  and  dominions,"  but  it  was  some  reassurance  to 
remember  now  that  it  is  all  one  to  those  concerned,  and 
that  popular  sentiment  has  smothered  in  oblivion  any 
subsequent  wife  or  children,  if  the  shah  had  such. 

It  would  require  a  volume  to  explore  the  flora  of  the 
Taj  alone ;  in  its  ornamentation  the  rarest  flowers  and 
leaves  are  traceable,  and  the  way  in  which  they  twine  and 
frame  the  sentences  of  the  Koran  reminds  one  of  the  plea- 
sant fact  that  the  materials  of  ancient  literature  were  the 
leaves,  bark,  or  tablets  of  trees,  still  preserved  in  the  words 
paper,  library,  book. 

Beside  the  Taj  flows  the  Jumna,  on  whose  banks  Krishna 
dwelt  among  the  milkmaids,  charmed  the  lowly  with  his 
lute,  and  danced  with  the  rustic  beauties  in  those  marvel- 
lous dances  where  each  believed  that  he  was  her  partner. 
It  is  a  peaceful,  languid  river,  with  alternating  mead- 
ows and  sandy  beaches,  where  in  the  warm  morning  the 


286  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

mild-eyed  lotus-eaters  were  visible  seated  on  the  yellow 
sand  or  bathing  in  the  sacred  stream.  The  whole  land- 
scape was  a  picture  of  pastoral  beauty.  There  are  beauti- 
ful riverside  gardens,  well  kept,  one  being  the  Asam 
Bogh,  where  Babar,  founder  of  the  Mogul  dynasty,  had 
his  fountain  of  wine  and  his  revels. 

But  all  emperors  are  dwarfed  in  presence  of  the  shade 
of  Akbar.  His  tomb  is  five  miles  from  Agra,  and  the  road 
is  very  pleasant,  past  interesting  old  places  of  which  plea- 
sant stories  are  told  and  some  unpleasant  ones  forgotten. 
An  old  church  recalls  the  catholicity  of  Akbar  and  the 
wit  of  his  son  who  proposed  that  the  Jesuit  Father  with 
his  Gospel  under  his  arm,  and  the  Mollah  with  the  Koran 
under  his,  should  try  the  virtue  of  their  respective  beliefs 
by  casting  themselves  together  into  a  fiery  pit,  promising 
to  embrace  the  religion  of  the  one  that  came  out  safe. 
This  appears,  however,  to  have  been  somewhat  of  a  decline 
from  the  large  way  of  Akbar.  His  mausoleum  is  second 
only  to  the  Taj  in  beauty.  But  I  could  not  help  feeling 
that  the  Albert  Memorial  in  Hyde  Park,  with  all  its 
faults,  represents  an  advance  in  the  idea  of  a  great  man's 
memorial.  How  far  more  precious  to  us  now  than  this 
great  silent  palace  rising  over  the  small  marble  tomb 
would  be  a  pedestal  carved  with  the  forms  and  faces  of 
the  men  of  all  religions  who  gathered  around  Akbar  in 
his  wonderful  assemblies !  How  valuable  would  be  a 
statue  there  of  Akbar  himself,  and  statues  of  his  scholarly 
friends,  —  Abulf azl,  Bir  Bar,  and  Faizi  the  poet,  who  de- 
scribed himself  as  "  a  freethinker  who  belongs  to  a  thou- 
sand sects !  " 

Akbar's  palace  in  Agra  is  beautiful,  and  has  the  charm 
of  holding  the  marble  slab  on  which  his  throne  rested. 
It  might  be  called  Akbar's  Vedi,  or  pulpit  —  "  the  pulpit 


AKBAR  287 

of  light "  of  which  his  friend  Faizi  wrote.  Here  he  sat 
to  judge  his  people.  There  is  a  red  stain  on  it,  said  to  be 
of  blood,  as  if  the  marble  still  remembered  the  heart's 
blood  of  a  true  man.  Before  this  marble  dais  came  the 
learned  men  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  and  from  the 
religious  camps  into  which  creeds  had  divided  it.  Each 
brought  his  Sacred  Books,  —  studied  by  Akbar  seven  gen- 
erations before  known  to  the  scholars  of  Europe,  —  and 
each  had  his  gospel  and  his  argument  heard  and  heeded. 
None  was  permitted  to  affront  another;  the  throne  of 
one  emperor  at  least  should  be  the  throne  of  impartial 
justice  and  calm  reason !  Three  hundred  years  before 
Akbar  the  same  large  hospitality  to  all  religious  ideas 
and  systems  was  known  in  China  before  an  emperor 
whose  hard  Moslem  faith  had  been  softened  by  Buddhism 
—  even  in  that  stately  "  pleasure-dome  "  of  Kubla  Khan, 
which  some  suppose  the  dream  of  Coleridge. 

But  it  reappeared  in  the  Jumna,  beside  which  rose  this 
pleasure-dome  and  palace  of  truth,  where  Akbar  brought 
India  its  day  of  grace,  so  soon  sinned  away !  There  are 
some  indications  in  the  ancient  accusations  brought  against 
Solomon  for  idolatry  that  the  wise  king  was  the  prototype 
of  these  oriental  liberals.  They  are  all  fairly  followed  by 
the  catholicity  of  the  English  regime,  which  maintains 
perfect  equality  of  all  religions,  and  protects  every  temple 
and  every  so-called  "  idol "  from  affront. 

The  chief  obstacle  to  a  full  appreciation  of  the  poetic 
ideals  embodied  in  oriental  mythology  by  English  and 
American  people  lies  in  our  ethical  limitations.  It  re- 
quires close  study  of  the  early  social  conditions  of  India 
to  see  that  the  morality  by  which  the  legends  and  im- 
ages of  India  are  judged  is  the  result  of  local  conditions, 
and  its  standard  provincial.  All  through  this  region  the 


288  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

legends  of  Krishna  and  his  dances  with  the  milkmaids, 
multiplying  himself  miraculously,  are  particularly  strong. 
To  the  average  Englishman  they  suggest  immoral  ideas, 
and  it  is  rare  to  find  a  mind  so  elevated  as  Renan,  who 
intended  to  compose  a  sacred  ballet  on  Krishna.  The 
scientific  mind  guards  itself  from  confusing  even  such 
institutions  as  polygamy  and  polyandry  with  immorality. 
Immorality  depends  on  the  actual  wrongs  caused,  not  on 
the  supposed  spiritual  injuries,  by  any  conduct.  In  a 
conference  of  Protestant  missionaries  at  Calcutta  it  was 
made  clear  that  it  would  be  unjust  and  cruel,  therefore 
immoral,  for  their  Hindu  converts  to  send  all  their  wives 
adrift  except  one.  This  conference,  consisting  of  Epis- 
copalians, Presbyterians,  Methodists,  Baptists,  Independ- 
ents, came  unanimously  to  this  conclusion :  — 

If  a  convert,  before  becoming  a  Christian,  has  married 
more  wives  than  one,  in  accordance  with  the  practice  of 
the  Jewish  and  primitive  Christian  churches,  he  shall  be 
permitted  to  keep  them  all,  but  such  a  person  is  not  eli- 
gible to  any  office  in  the  church. 

Although  General  Sleeman,  in  his  delightful  "  Ram- 
bles," and  others,  have  said  much  of  the  virtues  of  the 
Emperor  Akbar's  wife,  there  would  appear  to  be  some 
possibilities  that  the  father  of  her  first  son  after  his  mar- 
riage was  the  famous  hermit  to  whom  the  childless  pair 
came  for  miraculous  assistance.  The  historians  are  care- 
ful to  say  that  this  hermit,  Sheik  Saleen,  was  ninety-six 
years  old.  The  statement  bears  a  suspicious  resemblance 
to  the  extreme  age  ascribed  to  Abraham,  and  in  medi- 
aeval art  to  the  husband  of  Mary.  This  eldest  son  of 
Akbar  and  the  Hindu  princess  who  had  become  his  wife, 
born  1569,  was  at  any  rate  named  Saleen  after  the  her- 
mit. He  ascended  the  throne  under  the  name  of  Jehangir, 


A  DROLL  ADVENTURE  289 

and,  if  indeed  he  were  the  hermit's  son,  did  more  justice 
to  his  amatory  propensities  than  to  the  good  name  of 
Akbar.  In  obtaining  his  wife,  he  went  beyond  the  exam- 
ple of  David  in  the  Uriah  affair,  which  it  closely  resem- 
bles in  all  except  the  repentance. 

That  the  great-hearted  Akbar's  liberality  and  toler- 
ance should  have  proved  the  very  means  of  leading  on 
the  strife,  cruelties,  murders,  which  culminated  in  the 
enthronement  of  Aurungzeb,  the  murderous  "  Man  of 
Prayers,"  is  enough  to  make  one  a  pessimist.  While 
moving  among  the  memorials  of  these  events  I  came  upon 
a  fair  symbol  of  that  saintly  assassin  —  a  huge  crocodile 
just  caught  in  the  Jumna.  Its  face  and  the  hungry  cru- 
elty of  its  roaming  eye  were  a  study.  It  was  dragon-like, 
and  the  crowd  of  half -naked,  dusky  people  around  this 
reptile,  well  secured  with  ropes,  opened  a  sort  of  vista 
into  the  saurian  age.  The  St.  George  who  had  conquered 
the  monster  was  making  money  by  it,  as  it  is  said  the 
saint  did. 

And  now  I  had  a  droll  adventure  in  this  crowd.  I  had 
managed,  or  thought  I  had,  to  convey  to  my  guide  my 
desire  to  see  the  poorest  parts  of  Agra  —  dwellings  of 
the  poor.  It  puzzled  him  exceedingly.  After  profound 
meditation  on  what  I  had  said,  by  the  assistance  of  a 
chance  Babu,  he  directed  the  driver  to  stop  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  street.  He  then  went  forth  right  and  left  and 
brought  back  a  swarm  of  ragged  and  mutilated  beggars, 
and  pointing  to  them,  said,  "  There  !  there ! "  or  some- 
thing that  sounded  like  those  words.  He  evidently  had 
concluded  that  my  desire  was  to  form  a  sort  of  collection 
of  Agra  paupers  and  deformities.  In  one  minute  my  car- 
riage was  completely  blocked  by  a  crowd  of  these  wretched 
people  holding  out  their  hands  and  their  babies,  with 


290  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

cries  of  "  Boxes  "  (Baksheesh).  Fortunately,  I  was  pro- 
vided with  pice  enough  to  divert  the  attention  of  the 
crowd  to  another  part  of  the  street  by  throwing  them 
there.  In  this  way  we  escaped  from  the  siege,  and  al- 
though I  was  followed  by  certain  beggars  whose  muti- 
lations made  them  swift,  found  refuge  in  the  Jumna 
Mosque. 

The  Jumna  Mosque,  built  in  honour  of  the  Princess 
Jehanara,  —  who  with  her  brother  Dara  (murdered  by  his 
brother  Aurungzeb)  had  maintained  the  great  liberalism 
of  their  grandfather  (Akbar),  —  has  fitly  become  asso- 
ciated with  schools  in  which  various  languages  and  lit- 
eratures are  taught.  On  the  right  of  the  great  court  there 
are  large  spaces  something  like  open  cloisters.  Next  to 
the  pleasure  of  seeing  the  Taj,  if  not  even  greater,  was 
that  I  experienced  in  seeing  these  children  —  Hindu, 
Moslem,  and  Christian  —  studying  Persian,  Arabic,  Urdu, 
and  these  from  their  great  literatures.  I  lingered  near, 
and  listened  to  their  musical  voices  reading  to  their  vener- 
able teachers  Suras  of  the  Koran,  sentences  from  Saadi's 
"  Gulistan  "  and  "Bustan,"  tales  from  Nizami,  verses  from 
Hafiz.  Several  of  the  teachers  with  whom  I  conversed 
were  pleased  with  my  interest  in  the  Persian  and  Ara- 
bian poets,  and  showed  me  the  books  used.  At  my 
request  some  children  were  selected  who  sang  quatrains 
of  Omar  Khayyam.  I  purchased  some  of  these  works,  and 
in  the  neighbourhood  bought  queer  picture-books  of  Hindu 
mythology  put  forth  by  some  freethinking  caricaturist. 
On  the  whole,  this  mosque  of  the  lowly  and  liberal  Jeha- 
nara, with  its  schools,  —  possibly  following  similar  ones 
founded  by  herself, — where  children  are  taught  the  real 
beauties  of  oriental  literature,  —  seems  to  me  of  equal 
beauty  in  one  sense  with  the  Taj.  Here  was  the  last  lamp 


KRISHNA'S  DANCE  291 

burning  from  the  sacred  tomb  of  Akbar!  Its  light 
reflected  a  beautiful  light  from  the  Taj,  the  tomb  of  her 
mother.  To  this  again  I  repaired  to  linger  motionless 
before  it  until  the  night  train  should  tear  me  away. 
Through  all  the  park  doves  were  cooing,  the  flowers 
breathing  their  passionate  perfume,  while  here  and  there 
man  and  maid  wandered  in  the  deep  foliage;  and  I 
caught  the  theme  of  that  old,  old  music  which  has  built 
the  walls  of  many  cities  before  and  since  Thebes,  but 
never  built  in  stone  a  more  beautiful  monument  than  the 
Taj. 

The  American  poet  Park  Benjamin  wrote  a  charming 
"  Song  of  the  Stromkerl,"  based  on  the  following  quota- 
tion from  Washington  Irving :  — 

"  The  Swedes  delight  to  tell  of  the  Stromkerl,  or  boy 
of  the  stream,  who  haunts  the  glassy  brooks  and  steals 
gently  through  green  meadows,  and  sits  on  the  silver 
waves  at  moonlight,  playing  his  harp  to  the  elves  who 
dance  on  the  flowery  margin."  It  would  be  a  fair  subject 
for  any  investigator  of  folk-lore  to  search  out  how  far 
has  extended  in  Europe  this  romance  of  the  youthful 
Krishna  and  his  dance,  while  his  career  as  a  renowned 
and  crafty  warrior  has  no  distinct  representations  in 
the  west.  The  legend  of  Krishna's  dance  with  the  cow- 
maidens,  each  believing  she  had  him  for  a  partner,  bears 
a  notable  resemblance  to  a  scene  in  George  Sandys  mar- 
vellous novel,  "  Les  Maitres  Sonneurs/"  The  fascinating 
young  genius  of  the  mysterious  Band  suddenly  appears  at 
a  village  fete,  with  his  exquisite  cornet  sets  them  all  to 
dancing,  manages  to  dance  with  all  the  prettiest,  and  van- 
ishes in  the  forest  at  daybreak.  George  Sand's  picture  is 
too  realistic  for  one  to  be  certain  of  anything  more  than 
that  if  any  such  rustic  performance  suggested  the  Krishna 


292  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

dance-legend  it  must  have  been  in  an  India  long  ex- 
tinct. 

There  is  a  popular  Puranic  legend  which  has  not  yet, 
I  believe,  received  attention  from  the  students  of  com- 
parative mythology.  In  a  discourse  in  London  (which 
was  printed)  relating  to  the  legend  of  St.  Agnes  I  traced 
her  steps  through  the  Miracle  Plays  to  Lady  Godiva  of 
Coventry,  but  I  had  not  then  connected  her  with  the  Hindu 
princess  Draupadi.  St.  Agnes,  it  will  be  remembered, 
was  a  Christian  convert  who  refused  the  suit  of  a  Eoman 
nobleman,  saying  that  she  was  betrothed  to  a  heavenly 
lover.  The  youth's  father,  Prefect  of  Home,  unable  to 
bend  her  resolution,  condemned  her  to  public  exposure 
and  dishonour.  But  when  she  was  divested  of  clothing, 
the  Prefect's  son,  as  he  approached  her,  was  struck 
blind,  and  when  she  was  led  forth  her  hair  had  miracu- 
lously grown  so  as  to  envelop  her  as  a  garment.  After- 
wards, however,  she  pitied  him  who  had  been  struck  blind, 
and  her  prayer  restored  his  sight. 

The  beautiful  Draupadi,  wife  of  the  five  Pandavas 
princes,  was  taken  captive  by  King  Duryodhan,  who  was 
about  to  marry  her.  The  loyal  wife  scornfully  refused, 
and  the  fierce  king  ordered  that  she  should  be  cut  to 
pieces,  and  first,  he  said,  '  Strip  her  so  that  all  may  see 
her ! "  His  officer  seized  her  by  the  hair  and  began  to 
strip  her.  She  prayed  to  Krishna,  who  appeared  before 
her.  When  Dushasan  stripped  her  he  found  another 
dress ;  he  stripped  her  of  that  and  found  yet  another ; 
and  thus  he  went  on  until  he  found  a  dress  which  adhered 
to  the  skin  and  could  not  be  removed.  These  miracles 
converted  her  oppressors,  and  all  went  well. 

In  a  conversation  I  once  had  with  Anthony  Froude 
concerning  the  resemblances  between  certain  narratives 


HEBREW  AND  INDIAN  MYTHS         293 

in  the  oriental  books  and  those  of  the  Bible,  he  said 
that  a  number  of  such  coincidences  used  to  be  talked 
of  among  the  students  at  Oxford  when  he  was  there, 
and  that  they  were  explained  by  a  theory  that  there  had 
been  a  divine  preparation  of  the  ancient  pagan  race, 
for  the  reception  of  the  Christian  revelation.  Since  that 
time,  however,  the  study  of  Christian  mythology  has  at- 
tained the  proportions  of  a  science. 

The  only  satisfactory  method  of  discriminating  between 
a  natural  coincidence  of  one  myth  with  another  and  those 
that  could  not  have  had  independent  origin  is,  as  I  think, 
the  simple  literary  method.  It  does  not  follow  because 
some  of  the  things  said  in  the  Bible  to  have  been  imported 
by  Solomon  have  Sanscrit  names  that  Solomon  visited 
India.  The  American  turkey  never  came  from  Turkey,  and 
our  American  Indians  never  came  from  India.  But  the 
"Judgment  of  Solomon,"  for  instance,  is  traceable  to  SOL 
Indian  source.  In  the  oriental  legend  the  wise  judge  is  a 
maiden.  For  Visakha,  son  of  the  prime  minister  of  Kosala, 
a  bride  is  sought  in  various  regions  by  a  Brahman.  Among 
the  many  maidens  conversed  with  one  gave  evidence  of  ex- 
traordinary wisdom.  She  was  brought  to  Kosala  with  great 
pomp,  but  before  being  asked  for  her  hand  she  was  enter- 
tained in  the  palace  in  order  that  her  wisdom  might  be 
tested.  Among  the  various  tests  she  was  asked  to  decide 
between  two  women  claiming  to  be  mother  of  the  same 
child.  She  said :  — 

Speak  to  the  two  women  thus :  "  As  we  do  not  know 
to  which  of  you  the  boy  belongs,  let  her  who  is  the  strong- 
est take  the  boy."  When  each  of  them  has  taken  hold 
of  one  of  the  boy's  hands,  and  he  begins  to  cry  out  on 
account  of  the  pain,  the  real  mother  will  let  go,  being  full 
of  compassion  for  him,  and  knowing  that  if  her  child  re- 
mains alive  she  will  be  able  to  see  it  again ;  but  the  other, 


294  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

who  has  no  compassion  for  him,  will  not  let  go.  Then 
beat  her  with  a  switch,  and  she  will  thereupon  confess 
the  truth  of  the  whole  matter. 

Thus  far  one  might  say  that  this  tale,  from  the  Tibetan 
"  Kah-Gyur,"  might  have  been  suggested  by  the  story  of 
Solomon.  But  in  the  Biblical  tale  there  is  a  missing  link : 
why  should  the  false  mother,  who  had  so  desired  the 
child,  consent  to  have  it  cut  in  two  ?  What  motive  could 
she  have  ?  In  the  Tibetan  tale  one  of  the  women  is  the 
wife,  the  other  the  concubine,  of  a  householder.  The 
wife  bore  him  no  child,  and  was  jealous  of  the  concubine 
on  account  of  her  babe.  The  concubine,  feeling  certain 
that  the  wife  would  kill  the  child,  gave  it  to  her,  with  her 
lord's  approval;  but  after  his  death  possession  of  the 
house  had  to  follow  motherhood  of  the  child.  If,  however, 
the  child  were  dead,  the  false  claimant  would  be  mistress 
of  the  house.  Here,  then,  is  a  motive  wanting  in  the  story 
of  Solomon,  and  suggesting  that  the  latter  is  not  the 
original. 

In  the  ancient  "Mahosadha  Jataka"  the  false  claimant 
proves  to  be  a  Yakshini  (a  sort  of  vampire)  who  wishes 
to  eat  the  child.  To  Buddha  himself  is  here  ascribed  the 
judgment,  which  is  much  the  same  as  that  of  the  "  wise 
Champa  maiden,"  Visakha.  Here  also  is  a  motive  for 
assenting  to  the  child's  death  which  is  lacking  in  the  Bib- 
lical story. 

It  may  be  mentioned  as  an  interesting  parallel  that 
the  wise  maiden  in  the  Hindu  tale  bears  the  same 
name  as  the  young  man  whose  bride  she  becomes  — 
Visakha,  —  and  that  the  bride  in  Solomon's  Song  of 
Songs  is  named  Shulamith,  —  feminine  of  Shelomoh, 
Solomon. 

All  the  Hindus  I  met  impressed  me  by  their  politeness 


KRISHNA  AND  CHRIST  295 

and  tact.  Perhaps  their  superiority  to  the  average  mis- 
sionary in  manners  is  that  the  Hindu  is  not  a  propagandist 
of  his  religion.  He  is  not  addicted  to  the  rudeness  of  tell- 
ing others,  "  Your  religion  is  all  false,  mine  is  true,  and 
you  will  be  damned,  as  your  ancestors  are,  if  you  don't 
agree  with  me."  I  have  no  doubt  that  these  learned  Brah- 
mans,  who  know  English  and  are  students  of  the  Bible, 
are  convinced  that  Christianity  has  derived  ideas  from 
•  India,  but  in  no  instance  have  I  known  any  one  of  them  to 
suggest  this  unless  the  subject  was  introduced  by  myself. 
They  not  only  avoid  treading  on  Christian  toes,  but  even 
on  corns. 

In  recent  times  educated  Christian  writers  have  been 
inclined  to  follow  Paul's  example  on  Mars  Hill,  and  quote 
the  poets  of  alien  religions,  claiming  indeed  that  "  Provi- 
dence "  has  prepared  in  all  races  furrows  for  the  gospel 
seed,  there  being  only  one  or  two  coincidences  that  excite 
their  fear.  Principal  among  these  is  the  similarity  be- 
tween the  birth-legends  of  Krishna  and  Christ.  The  ques- 
tion of  precedence  is  too  academic  to  be  dealt  with  here, 
but  an  examination  of  the  old  Hindu  pictures  leads  me  to 
the  conclusion  that  at  no  period  could  the  name  "  Christ " 
or  his  birth-legends  have  been  appropriated  for  an  amo- 
rous deity  like  Krishna.  In  later  times  European  and  Hindu 
authors  have  tried  to  give  mystical  interpretation  to  the 
love  romances  of  Krishna,  just  as  the  Bible  translators 
headed  the  chapters  of  the  "  Song  of  Songs  "  with  such 
absurdities,  but  it  seems  that  this  eighth  incarnation  of 
Vishnu  (Krishna)  represents  a  reaction  of  human  nature 
against  the  extreme  Sivaite  asceticism.  One  may  even 
conjecture  that  the  Buddha  legend  was  a  sort  of  Sivaite 
protest  against  some  flute-playing  and  Epicurean  philoso- 
pher, and  that  their  conflict  passed  through  the  ages  from 


296  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

the  Jumna  to  the  Jordan  to  be  represented  in  a  childish 

rune  — 

We  piped  unto  you  and  ye  did  not  dance  : 
We  wailed,  and  ye  did  not  beat  the  breast. 

The  well-known  description  of  the  young  Prince  Sid- 
dartha's  last  great  fete  in  his  palace  ;  the  "  bevy  of  the  most 
lovely  and  fascinating  girls  surrounding  him,  striving  by 
dancing,  music,  and  songs  to  attract  his  thoughts  to  plea- 
sure ;  "  his  regarding  "  his  royal  palace,  full  of  lovely  wo- 
men, as  if  it  were  but  a  cemetery  full  of  horrid  corpses;  " 
his  leaving  this  splendour,  also  his  wife  and  child,  to  become 
a  mendicant,  —  all  these  traditions  picture  the  earthly  and 
present  paradise  with  which  Krishna  and  his  beautiful 
Radha  have  been  for  many  centuries  —  and  are  to  this  day 
—  associated. 

Of  Buddha  and  Christ  alike  it  is  said  that  they  were 
rich  but  became  poor.  Alike  they  are  of  royal  lineage. 
Krishna  is  predestined  to  a  throne,  which  he  finally  attains. 
Born  at  Mathura,  on  the  river  Jumna,  between  Agra  and 
Delhi,  Krishna  springs  from  the  tribe  of  Yuda.  A  Krish- 
naite  might  quote  literally  Hebrews  vii,  14 :  "It  is  clear 
beforehand  that  our  Lord  has  sprung  out  of  Judah" 
(louda).  His  father  was  Vasudef,  his  mother  Devaki  (i.  e. 
Divine  Lady).  On  the  night  of  his  birth  his  uncle,  King 
Kansa,  had  been  warned  by  a  voice  from  heaven  that  the 
eighth  son  of  Devaki  would  slay  him,  and  consequently 
had  every  nephew  killed  when  born.  But  Vasudef  fled 
with  the  child  across  the  river  and  placed  him  with  the 
shepherd  Nanda  and  his  wife  Yosada,  —  this  lady  becom- 
ing famous  as  Krishna's  reputed  mother.  The  tyrant 
Kansa  then  orders  a  general  massacre  of  infants,  but 
Krishna  and  his  brother,  Balarama  (Rama  the  strong)  are 
saved  and  the  two  are  brought  up  by  Yosada  as  her  own. 


KRISHNA  IN  HINDU  ART  297 

The  persecution  by  Kansa  and  his  death  by  the  hand  of 
Krishna  or  Vasudef  are  mentioned  in  Pantajali's  "  Great 
Commentary  "  (second  century  B.  c.).  There  is  evidence, 
too,  that  there  was  then  a  dramatic  representation  of  the 
story,  —  as  there  is  to-day.  But  the  Kansa  legend  has 
long  been  eclipsed  in  popular  interest  by  the  stories  of 
the  childhood  and  youth  of  Krishna  in  the  shepherd's 
home. 

Among  the  popular  coloured  •  prints  representing  the 
conventionalized  story  of  Krishna,  which  I  brought  home 
with  me,  two  are  of  especial  interest  and  beauty.  One 
represents  the  fair  foster-mother  Yosada  holding  some 
little  fruit  or  sugar-plum  in  her  hand  for  the  beautiful 
dark  blue  babe  which  in  moving  on  the  floor,  on  hands 
and  knees,  turns  his  face  to  her  and  lifts  his  right  hand. 
They  are  in  a  fine  hall  with  pillars  and  arches  ;  she  is 
elegantly  draped,  in  dark  red  cloak  and  hood,  arms  and 
feet  jewelled,  but  no  nose-ring:  the  child  is  naked  but 
covered  with  jewels,  —  one  heart-shaped  pendant  on  his 
breast,  another  above  his  forehead,  a  circle  above  which 
rise  three  feathers  forming  a  sort  of  cross.  A  vague  halo 
surrounds  the  head.  Still  more  striking  is  the  other  pic- 
ture. Yosada  comes  out  of  a  fine  arched  doorway  to  a 
veranda  following  blue  Krishna,  a  boy  of  ten  years,  with 
her  hands  on  his  shoulders,  where  they  are  met  by  his 
brother  Balarama,  of  the  same  size,  who  leans  forward  to 
kiss  him.  This  brother  is  white,  and  bears  a  staff.  Out- 
side is  a  flock  of  sheep  watched  by  the  shepherd,  who  has 
a  long  white  beard  and  a  crook  in  his  hand.  There  is  the 
same  disparity  of  age  between  Nanda  and  Yosada  that  is 
noticeable  in  pictures  of  Joseph  and  Mary.  Yosada  and 
both  children  are  richly  dressed  and  adorned  with  pearls, 
each  having  one  on  the  upper  lip.  I  find  it  impossible  to 


298  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

look  at  this  picture  without  feeling  that  it  is  related  to  the 
Catholic  picture  of  the  Holy  Family  and  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  although  there  is  here  no  halo. 

There  are  many  theories  about  the  dark  blue  colour  of 
Krishna.  The  name  means  "black."  Possibly  it  was  ori- 
ginally meant  to  show  that  he  was  sprung  from  the  dark 
aborigines  (non- Aryan)  and  the  blue  tint  given  later  when 
he  was  declared  an  avatar  of  Vishnu,  whose  throat  was 
blue. 

"  Krishna  teaching  Radha  to  play  the  flute"  is  a  favour- 
ite subject  of  Hindu  art.  The  merry  youth  possessed  the 
magic  flute,  and  no  cowherdess  could  resist  its  charm. 
According  to  Eusebius  the  original  Prodigal  Son  had 
in  the  far  country  devoured  his  substance  with  "flute- 
women." 

The  early  Christians  destroyed,  utterly,  more  than  a 
hundred  gospels  and  epistles  now  known  to  have  existed, 
among  them  three  by  St.  Thomas,  traditionally  the  apos- 
tle to  India.  We  are  left,  then,  to  conjecture  what  scan- 
dals to  ascetics  like  John  the  Baptist  and  his  disciples, 
who  fasted  while  Jesus  fasted  not,  led  to  the  reputation 
of  his  being  "  a  glutton  and  a  wine-drinker,  a  friend  of 
bankers  and  sinners,"  also  to  the  narratives  of  worldliness 
and  fine  entertainments  in  Egyptian  palaces  of  Joseph, 
Mary,  and  the  child,  related  in  the  Arabic  Gospel. 

It  must  be  always  borne  in  mind  that  with  Buddhism 
arose  the  first  missionary  religion ;  their  propagandists  went 
through  the  nations,  like  the  Franciscans  of  later  times,  and 
in  cities  where  their  language  was  popularly  unknown  they 
must  depend  on  scenery  and  pantomime.  There  are  evi- 
dences of  Buddhist  missions  in  Palestine  and  Arabia,  and 
the  scenes  of  gaiety  and  licentiousness  associated  with 
Krishna  and  his  flute  and  dancing  girls  beside  the  Jumna 


LEGEND   OF  ST.  GIOSAFAT  299 

would  naturally  be  the  background  of  the  Prince  Euddha 
turning  his  back  on  all  worldly  revelries. 

The  beautiful  statue  of  St.  Giosafat  in  the  ancient 
church  bearing  his  name  at  Palermo  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting in  Europe.  John  of  Damascus  (born  A.  D.  676) 
came  into  contact  there  with  the  story  of  a  prince  who 
prepared  two  boxes,  one  of  gold  the  other  of  some  base 
substance,  between  which  his  nobles  were  summoned  to 
make  their  choice  ;  they  all  chose  the  gold  box  which  was 
found  full  of  dead  bones,  while  the  other  was  found  to  con- 
tain rarest  gems.  The  prince  then  rebuked  his  nobles  for 
judging  by  the  senses.  This  prince,  as  is  now  known,  was 
no  other  than  Buddha,  but  on  the  representations  of  John 
of  Damascus  at  Rome  he  was  declared  a  saint  and  recog- 
nized as  such  by  a  succession  of  Popes  from  Sixtus  V  to 
the  present  day,  —  November  27  in  the  Calendar  being 
solemnly  set  apart  for  his  commemoration.  This  beautiful 
example  of  the  continuity  of  religious  history  is  fitly  en- 
shrined in  the  beautiful  statue.  The  crown  and  the  nimbus 
rise  above  a  face,  in  which  manliness  and  womanliness  are 
combined,  turned  to  the  crucifix  upheld  in  the  right  hand, 
the  left  being  folded  around  a  large  volume. 

I  was  interested  to  find  all  the  young  people  in  India  and 
in  Ceylon  speaking  of  the  Brahmans  as  the  "  Catholics." 
I  asked  several  of  them  how  they  managed  to  get  that 
term  for  the  original  religion  of  their  country,  and  they 
could  not  tell  me  anything  except  that  it  was  inherited 
from  time  immemorial.  In  looking  at  the  favourite  house- 
hold pictures  of  Brahmanism,  I  feel  certain  that  their  so- 
called  "goddesses"  are  simply  a  sisterhood  of  symbolical 
figures.  There  is  a  goddess  of  music  (Benapani),  who 
holds  a  long,  uniformly  narrow  stringed  instrument  which 
rises  up  above  her  solar  halo ;  she  is  seated  on  a  throne  of 


300  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

unopened  white  lilies  over  a  lake,  her  footstool  being  a 
red-leaved  lotus.  She  is  a  sister,  no  doubt,  of  Kadha,  learn- 
ing to  play  the  flute  from  her  beloved  Krishna.  And  both 
are  glorified  in  the  supreme  goddess  Lakshmi,  the  goddess 
of  Prosperity.  The  beautiful  face  of  Lakshmi  and  her 
superb  jewelled  crown  surmounted  by  the  Phallic  emblem 
is  haloed  by  the  sun ;  her  right  hand  holds  a  large  golden 
vase  with  turreted  cover ;  the  affluence  of  earth  and  sea 
surrounds  her,  —  all  varieties  of  shells  and  lotuses,  and  be- 
yond her  a  field  of  golden  wheat.  But  there  are  two  sym- 
bols that  set  one  dreaming  of  her  kinswomen  in  other 
lands :  prominent  beside  her  is  a  large  owl,  which  tells  of 
the  Wisdom  that  crowned  Prosperity  in  Athens ;  and  at 
Lakshmi's  breast  is  clasped  a  sheaf  of  wheat  which  will 
reappear  in  the  image  of  Ceres  at  Rome. 

The  owl  is  universally  a  bird  of  ill  omen.  From  it  came 
the  fatally  fascinating  Lilith,  whose  name  is  foolishly 
suppressed  under  the  name  screech-owl  in  the  old  version 
of  Isaiah  xxxiv,  14 :  "  Lilith  shall  abide  there  and  find 
her  a  place  of  rest."  Lilith,  in  Jewish  tradition  Adam's 
first  wife,  would  more  nearly  resemble  Radha.  The  owl  of 
Lakshmi  is  always  white,  its  uncanny  reputation  being 
thus  perhaps  softened  into  that  of  a  white  witch.  Its  great 
eyes,  unwinking,  able  to  see  into  and  through  the  darkness, 
made  it  the  symbol  of  Fortune  and  of  Wisdom  so  long 
as  Paradise  was  conceived  as  on  earth  ;  when  Indra's  Par- 
adise was  superseded  by  a  Paradise  in  the  sky  the  owl  was 
superseded  by  the  carrier  pigeon,  which  on  Egyptian  mon- 
uments the  priests  are  seen  sending  off  to  bear  the  secrets 
of  earth  to  the  gods. 

At  every  moment  in  India  I  had  to  lament  the  narrow- 
ness of  our  English  and  American  theologians  and  pro- 
fessors who,  in  their  gratuitous  jealousy  for  the  originality 


ORIGIN  OF  WESTERN  FOLK-LORE        301 

of  everything  in  the  Bible,  implanted  even  in  the  most 
liberal  of  us  their  pupils  a  notion  that  there  was  at  and 
before  the  beginning  of  our  era  a  great  gulf  fixed  between 
the  "  Holy  Land  "  and  India,  so  that  nothing  could  have 
been  possibly  derived  therefrom  by  Christianity.  That 
error  is  now  exploded,,  even  in  Protestant  countries,  — 
for  the  Greek  and  Roman  churches  must  be  credited  with 
having  for  the  most  part  ignored  this  error.  In  fact, 
nearly  all  of  our  European  and  American  folk-lore  is  the 
debris  of  Asiatic  usage  and  superstition,  such  as  blessing 
people  when  they  sneeze ;  the  indication  by  a  burning 
ear  or  cheek  that  somebody  is  talking  about  you ;  the 
symbolism  of  the  stork  ;  the  dog  howling  at  night  as  a 
presage  of  death  ;  and  the  horseshoe  as  protection  against 
sorcery. 

The  Covenant  of  Salt  in  the  East,  which  in  Europe  simply 
represents  an  idle  notion  that  to  spill  salt  in  offering  it 
bodes  a  quarrel,  possesses  a  meaning  traceable  to  the  time 
when  men  carried  with  them  on  their  journeys  all  supplies 
except  a  few  very  cheap  things.  Every  man  was  supposed 
to  be  "  worth  his  salt,"  which  thus  became  a  symbol  of 
universal  brotherhood.  If  a  man  were  a  secret  enemy  he 
must  manage  to  spill  the  salt  which  a  suspicious  stranger 
might  demand.  In  India  it  is  usual  for  every  child  to 
begin  a  birthday  by  taking  a  little  salt. 

It  is  a  sufficient  evidence  that  the  book  of  Job  is 
adapted  from  an  Asiatic  original  that  in  the  West  one  of 
its  most  significant  sentences  (i,  22)  has  been  translated, 
"  In  all  this  Job  sinned  not,  nor  charged  God  foolishly ; " 
the  real  translation  being,  "  In  all  this  Job  sinned  not, 
nor  offered  his  sacrifice  without  salt."  Job  fulfilled  his 
part  of  the  covenant  without  faltering. 


CHAPTER   XIV 

Allahabad  —  Manwaysh  festival  —  Ganges  immersions  —  A  Christian- 
Brahman  debate  —  Relic  of  cobra- worship  —  River  deities  —  Christian 
and  Brahman  doctrines  of  sacrifice. 

I  WAS  sorry  not  to  find  Sir  Alfred  Lyall  at  Allahabad, 
but  two  gentlemen  in  the  Club  treated  me  politely  and 
secured  for  me  a  good  guide  for  the  great  annual  festival 
called  Manwaysh  —  that  is,  the  Junction  of  the  Waters. 
It  is  here  that  the  Ganges  and  the  Jumna  meet ;  and  to 
the  eyes  of  faith  there  is  a  third  river,  the  Saraswati, 
which  unites  with  them.  The  three  form  the  most  sacred 
of  the  seven  streams  that  fall  from  the  right  foot  of 
Vishnu,  according  to  the  Vishnuites  —  from  the  brow  of 
Siva  according  to  the  Sivaites.  Inside  the  fort  at  Alla- 
habad are  the  remains  of  a  subterranean  temple  in  which 
is  a  sacred  fountain  believed  to  be  fed  by  the  waters  of 
Saraswati.  I  was  reminded  of  Coleridge's  "  Alph  "  — 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran, 
Through  caverns  measureless  to  man, 
Down  to  a  sunless  sea. 

Here  too  a  fountain  "flung  up  momently  the  sacred 
river ; "  and  around  it  was  a  strange  collection  —  the 
Bleeding  Tree,  an  upright  log  at  whose  base  are  two  foot- 
prints of  Vishnu ;  a  phallia  linga  said  to  have  been  cut 
through  at  a  blow  by  the  Moslem  Aurungzoo,  whereon 
from  one  side  flowed  milk,  from  the  other  blood ;  foot- 
prints of  Kama  and  of  his  wife  Sita  ;  and  many  remark- 
able images  of  Krishna,  one  or  two  of  which  appeared  to 
me  inclining  to  be  Buddhas.  Emerging  from  this  subter- 


ALLAHABAD  303 

ranean  hiding-place  of  images  sufficiently  rude  to  seek 
concealment,  my  eyes  were  greeted  by  the  sight  of  a 
superb  Pillar  of  Asoka,  with  its  moral  laws  in  good  pre- 
servation, finely  pedestalled  and  surrounded  by  a  parterre 
of  flowers  tended  by  English  hands. 

It  is  three  miles  from  the  fort  to  the  junction  of  the 
rivers,  but  it  was  necessary  to  leave  there  my  carriage,  and 
move  on  foot  through  the  dense  crowd.  It  was  estimated 
that  two  millions  were  present  during  the  two  days'  fes- 
tival. As  these  people  were  to  my  eye  all  alike,  the  men 
mostly  naked,  I  had  to  pin  a  bit  of  red  on  the  head-dress 
of  my  guide  in  order  to  follow  him  as  he  pressed  on  rap- 
idly, shoving  people  aside.  As  we  drew  near  to  the  pro- 
montory between  the  rivers  the  bazars  multiplied,  and 
many  banners  floated  through  the  air,  pictured  with  all 
manner  of  totems,  nondescripts,  and  symbols.  On  one  side 
was  an  acre  of  ground,  where  a  large  population,  squatted 
on  the  ground,  were  having  their  heads  shorn  by  barbers. 
The  ground  was  carpeted  with  black  hair,  every  hair  sac- 
rificed meaning  an  added  year  in  Paradise.  No  woman, 
however,  was  sacrificing  her  glory  in  this  way,  nor  did  the 
women  imitate  the  zeal  of  many  male  pilgrims,  who  cov- 
ered themselves  with  mud  before  plunging  into  the  wat- 
ers. A  priest  standing  in  the  water  received  each  muddy 
pilgrim  and  besought  the  river  deities  to  purge  him  of  sin 
even  as  the  waters  washed  the  mud  from  his  body. 

The  rivers  are  shallow  at  their  junction,  and  a  continu- 
ous procession  was  wading  from  bank  to  bank.  The 
banks  far  and  near  were  black  with  the  swarm  of  people. 
There  were  lines  of  barges  moving  to  and  fro,  and  an 
island  made  of  bamboo  boats,  from  which  Hindus  were 
leaping  every  second.  I  was  soon  on  a  barge,  observing 
the  ecstasies  of  the  multitude,  aud  their  loud  invocations 


304  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

when  immersed.  The  men  wore  only  the  regulation  loin- 
cloth. The  women  on  the  bank  passed  in  frank  nudity 
from  their  clothes  to  transparent  bathing  Wrappers. 
There  was  no  sign  of  conscious  or  recognized  indecorum, 
but  on  the  other  hand  no  solemnity,  —  all  were  merry. 

A  large  portion  of  the  plain  had  the  appearance  of  a 
pleasure  fair.  It  was  a  kind  of  combination  of  Nijni-Nov- 
gorod  and  many  Methodist  campmeetings.  There  were 
little  extemporized  villages  (of  shanties)  intersected  by 
small  pathways,  and  tents  with  their  shrines ;  there  were 
innumerable  fakirs  covered  with  ashes,  their  foreheads 
frescoed  with  symbols,  receiving  worship  and  coppers.  In 
one  enclosure,  to  which  my  guide  took  me  accidentally, 
some  person  in  authority  warned  us  off.  My  guide  moved 
away  rapidly,  but  gave  me  no  explanation.  It  may  not 
have  been  a  religious  performance  at  all. 

There  were  many  low,  broad  tables  about  the  grounds, 
which  did  service  as  chairs  also,  supporting  the  fruits, 
grain,  and  sugar  cakes  sold  as  refreshment  for  both  man 
and  gods.  There  were  little  burnt  offerings  for  ancestors 
always  going  on.  Priests  were  performing  some  kind  of 
ceremony  over  devotees  who  bent  their  heads  to  the 
ground ;  the  priest  covered  the  low  bent  head  with  his 
skirt,  muttered  prayer  or  formula  with  open  eyes,  received 
his  coppers  or  cowries,  and  moved  on  to  the  next.  At  va- 
rious points  boys  rang  small  bells,  apparently  to  attract 
the  people  to  some  priest  ready  to  do  something  for  them. 
Large  numbers  of  sacred  cows  were  led  about,  decorated 
with  mystical  symbols  and  chains  of  coins  or  imitations  of 
them,  besides  ribands  about  their  horns.  Those  who  led 
the  little  slate-coloured  animals  expected  pice,  which  were 
given,  however,  chiefly  to  those  whose  cows  exhibited  some 
deformity.  The  number  of  these  was  large  enough  to  be 


MANWAYSH  FESTIVAL  305 

zoologically  interesting.  The  monstrosities  consisted  of 
little  legs  or  tails  coming  out  of  the  animal's  forehead, 
shoulder,  or  rump.  These  excrescences  were  handled 
freely,  several  of  them  by  myself.  Goethe  says,  "  Nature 
reveals  her  secrets  in  monsters,"  but  the  Hindu  notion  is 
that  the  secret  of  some  god  or  demon  is  contained  in 
each  monstrosity.  It  must  be  on  this  principle  they 
placate  their  fierce  persecutor  General  Nicholson,  who  fell 
in  the  siege  of  Delhi ;  and  elsewhere  an  Englishman  is 
worshipped  who  killed  his  wife  and  drank  himself  to 
death. 

A  certain  reverence  seemed  to  be  paid  to  human  infirm- 
ities, some  of  these  being  frightful  enough.  The  sufferers 
displayed  their  "  losses  "  as  proudly  as  Dogberry.  Amazing 
was  a  female  yogi,  quite  naked,  writhing  on  the  ground 
and  filling  the  air  with  her  ravings.  She  was  said  to  be 
"possessed,"  and  received  pice  therefor.  Not  far  from 
this  was  a  tent  in  which  a  Nautch  dancer  was  performing 
in  pantomime  some  divine  fable. 

I  observed  at  various  points  two  small  boys  with  painted 
faces  and  decorated  pasteboard  hats,  each  holding  a  bow 
and  arrow.  They  were  motionless,  and  I  could  not  under- 
stand the  meaning  of  this  recurring  wayside  tableau,  but 
suspect  that  it  is  the  last  diminutive  outcome  of  Arjuna 
and  Abhimonzu,  —  the  boy  warrior  now  pictured  as  the 
"boy  hermit."  At  another  point  a  man  was  telling  a 
gaping  circle  something  mysterious  about  a  veiled  woman 
who  sat  near  him. 

The  most  pathetic  sight  was  that  of  a  London  mis- 
sionary in  his  tent  contending  single-handed  against  a 
circle  of  acute  Brahmans.  There  was  a  large  crowd  around 
the  disputants.  The  heat  alone  was  enough  to  handicap 
the  Englishman ;  but,  apart  from  that,  his  task  was  suf- 


306  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

ficient  to  cause  perspiration.  I  was  careful  to  secure  a 
translation  of  every  word  as  it  was  uttered  on  either  side. 
As  I  entered,  the  Brahman  was  saying,  "  You  say  we  must 
have  faith ;  well,  we  have  faith."  Missionary :  "  But  you 
must  have  the  right  faith."  "  Our  faith  seems  to  us  as 
right  as  your  faith  seems  to  you."  "  But  you  have  faith 
in  such  things  as  the  water  of  the  Ganges."  "  But  if  it 
is  as  you  say,  —  we  are  saved  by  faith,  —  why  should 
we  not  be  saved  by  faith  in  the  holy  Ganges  ?  "  "  How 
can  the  Ganges  wash  away  your  sins?"  "The  water  of 
the  Ganges  washed  away  my  sins  this  morning."  "  How 
do  you  know  that  it  has  washed  away  your  sins  ?  "  "  How 
do  you  know  that  the  blood  of  Christ  has  washed  away 
your  sins  ?  "  "I  know  it  by  the  grace  of  God  in  my  heart." 
"And  I,"  said  the  Brahman,  "know  it  by  the  grace  of 
God  in  my  heart."  A  freethinking  Babu  remarked  to  me, 
"  That  missionary,  if  he  only  knew  it,  is  carrying  coals  to 
Newcastle."  I  could  not  help  smiling  that  our  proverb 
should  have  travelled  so  far. 

On  the  second  day  of  the  festival  I  saw  and  heard  a 
clever  missionary,  who  realized  that  he  had  in  his  audi- 
ence two  parties,  —  one  from  the  Punjab  who  differed  on 
some  pet  dogma  from  more  southern  Hindus.  The  mis- 
sionary was  similarly  hard  pressed  by  his  Brahman  adver- 
sary, —  a  fine-looking  and  able  man,  —  but  he  managed 
dexterously  to  shift  the  controversy  round  to  the  point  of 
difference  referred  to.  The  Punjab  men  soon  rose  against 
the  Brahmans,  and  the  missionary  had  the  satisfaction  of 
sitting  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  complacently  wiping  his 
brow  while  the  Hindus  disputed  with  animation.  Their 
voices  were  not  very  loud,  but  their  feeling  seemed  in- 
tense. One  of  them  gesticulated  in  a  strange  way,  and 
illustrated  some  point,  which  my  interpreter  did  not  quite 


STRANGE   SIGHTS  307 

catch,  by  taking  off  his  slipper,  treading  on  it,  then  put- 
ting it  on  again. 

I  had  observed  that  a  good  many  pilgrims  came  from 
a  direction  in  which  I  had  been  told  by  a  Hindu  scholar 
that  there  was  something  peculiar  to  be  seen.  I  devoted 
an  afternoon  to  an  exploration,  and  found  myself  amid 
scenes  so  unusual  that  I  felt  as  if  I  must  have  slept  away 
a  century  or  two  backward  and  waked  up  in  a  remote  past. 

At  last  I  approached  a  village  whose  name  was  given 
me  as  Daharwanga,  —  five  miles  perhaps  from  Allahabad. 
Near  it  I  came  to  a  crowded  common,  where  I  got  out  of 
my  carriage  and  walked.  Presently  I  came  upon  a  human 
head  lying  in  my  path  on  the  ground.  Starting  back,  I 
perceived  that  this  painted  head,  though  its  eyes  were 
closed,  belonged  to  a  living  man,  the  rest  of  his  body 
being  buried.  A  small  tent  had  been  raised  over  another 
head  farther  on  to  shade  it  from  the  sun.  Scenes  like 
these  began  to  multiply.  I  came  upon  several  naked  bodies, 
apparently  decapitated,  their  heads  alone  being  buried 
and  the  gravel  smoothed  flat  over  them.  There  were  a 
number  of  children  in  this  situation,  stretching  out  their 
hands  for  gifts.  So  little  respect,  however,  did  their  com- 
panions feel  for  these  infant  devotees  that  they  sometimes 
put  bits  of  tin  or  flint  in  their  hands,  which  were  promptly 
thrown  away.  At  one  point  a  young  woman  was  just 
burying  a  child  up  to  the  neck.  She  indicated  to  me  her 
expectation  of  pice,  which,  of  course,  she  did  not  get. 

As  I  walked  on,  men  and  women  seemed  to  be  frantic 
in  the  same  degree  that  I  had  witnessed  at  the  temple  of 
Kali  at  Kalighat.  They  were  all  pressing  to  a  small  and 
ancient  temple.  Thither  I  followed.  Approaching  the 
altar  I  beheld  there  one  image  alone  —  a  huge  five- 
headed  carved  cobra,  blackened  by  time.  A  crowd,  mainly 


308  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

of  women,  were  prostrate  before  this  weird  form.  It  was 
the  first  time  I  had  seen  serpent- worship,  pure  and  simple. 
There  was  a  horrible  splash  of  blood  on  the  pavement  in 
front  of  the  entrance.  What  poor  animal  it  was  that  had 
there  shed  its  blood  as  an  offering  to  the  Old  Serpent  I 
knew  not ;  but  I  felt  that  there  fear  had  paralyzed  pity, 
and  reason  sunk  lower  than  the  brute  it  sacrificed. 

For  two  pice  I  bought  one  of  the  popular  prints  of  the 
Allahabad  festival,  hawked  by  the  wayside.  It  is  a  rude 
and  primitive  representation  of  Krishna  standing  on  a 
lotus  on  the  sands ;  on  the  surface  of  the  Ganges  a  deity 
floats  on  a  crocodile ;  on  the  Jumna  a  deity  rides  on  a 
turtle ;  while  between,  presumably  on  the  unseen  Saras- 
wati,  a  deity  rides  on  a  goose.  It  appeared  at  first  a  fair 
triad,  and  fairly  mounted  on  the  zoologic  types  of  cruelty, 
slowness,  and  silliness,  but  it  is  the  brute  forms  subject 
to  divine  forms.  I  returned  to  enlightened  Akbar's  be- 
loved Allahabad,  which  Moslem  zealots  changed  to  "  City 
of  Allapast,"  passing  the  night-camps  of  innumerable 
pilgrims,  whose  fires  and  cauldrons  made  appropriate 
incidents  in  the  big  Witches'  Sabbath  I  had  witnessed. 
There  were  no  tents;  they  were  spreading  their  straw 
beds  on  the  ground  in  the  open  air,  a  motley  multitude 
of  men  and  women,  there  being,  however,  no  indications 
of  licentiousness.  I  passed  by  the  spot  where  the  great- 
hearted, catholic-minded  Akbar  lived  —  where  the  noble 
Pillar  of  Asoka,  with  its  sublime  Buddhist  edicts,  still 
rises  —  and  wondered  if  they  who  now  hold  the  fort 
which  guards  that  spot  will  ever  rise  to  a  corresponding 
height,  and  confront  the  superstitions  and  dogmas  of  the 
poor  missionary  labouring  so  vainly  in  his  tent. 

While  at  Allahabad,  under   the  vivid  impressions  of 


HINDU  AND   CHRISTIAN   FANATICS     309 

what  I  had  seen,  I  wrote  some  account  of  them  for  a  jour- 
nal, which  excited  the  attention  of  religious  papers.  I 
was  mortified  to  learn  that  my  testimony  was  cited  to 
show  the  need  of  missions  in  India,  its  importance  being 
that  I  was  known  to  be  an  admirer  of  the  oriental  reli- 
gions. I  did  not  blame  the  religious  journals  and  the 
preachers  for  making  the  most  of  my  description ;  it  was 
my  own  mistake  to  forget  that  I  was  carrying  my  South 
Place  platform  along  in  whatever  I  wrote,  and  in  giving 
to  the  world  a  description  of  certain  morbid  phenomena 
in  India  detached  from  my  account  of  things  healthy  and 
beautiful. 

What  I  witnessed  at  Allahabad  was  the  elite  of  the  fa- 
naticisms of  the  country,  represented  by  two  millions  out 
of  a  population  of  300,000,000.  The  proportion  of  Hindus 
who  deplore  such  things  to  those  who  act  in  them  is  as 
large  as  the  proportion  of  Americans  who  hold  aloof  from 
spirit-rapping,  Christian  Science,  and  the  Salvation  Army. 
And  for  the  rest,  what  were  these  harmless  orgies  of 
three  days,  during  which  no  accident  or  injury  occurred 
to  any  one,  compared  with  what  I  had  witnessed  for  many 
days  together  on  Christian  battlefields  ?  Of  course  it  will 
appear  differently  to  Christians  fanatical  enough  to  be- 
lieve that  all  these  devotees  are  passing  into  eternal  fires, 
but  for  my  part  I  would  far  rather  see  the  crowd  of  people 
in  my  native  South  gathered  to  sacrifice  kids  before  Kali 
or  Cobra,  than  gathered  to  burn  a  living  negro. 

The  late  Professor  F.  W.  Newman,  brother  of  the  car- 
dinal, in  early  life  discovered  that  there  was  no  possibil- 
ity of  converting  the  "  heathen  "  until  Christendom  had 
earned  a  new  reputation  among  them.  Christians  are 
known  among  them  as  great  conquerors,  avengers,  traders, 
often  lax  in  morals,  indifferent  to  religion.  Newman  im- 


310  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

agined  a  little  colony  among  these  aliens,  so  animated  by 
primitive  faith,  love,  disinterestedness,  that  their  moral 
influence  might  be  felt.  Several  Irish  youths  sympathized 
with  his  vision,  and  in  1830  they  left  for  Bagdad.  New- 
man, then  about  twenty-five,  held  a  conversation  at  Aleppo 
with  a  Mohammedan  carpenter,  which  left  on  him  a  last- 
ing impression.  "  Among  other  matters,"  says  Newman, 
"  I  was  peculiarly  desirous  of  disabusing  him  of  the  cur- 
rent notion  of  his  people,  that  our  gospels  are  spurious 
narratives  of  late  date.  I  found  great  difficulty  of  expres- 
sion; but  the  man  listened  to  me  with  much  attention, 
and  I  was  encouraged  to  exert  myself.  He  waited  pa- 
tiently till  I  had  done,  and  then  spoke  to  the  following 
effect :  '  I  will  tell  you,  sir,  how  the  case  stands.  God 
has  given  to  you  English  a  great  many  good  gifts.  You 
make  fine  ships,  and  sharp  penknives,  and  good  cloth  and 
cottons ;  and  you  have  rich  nobles  and  brave  soldiers ;  and 
you  write  and  print  many  learned  books  (dictionaries 
and  grammars)  :  all  this  is  of  God.  But  there  is  one  thing 
that  God  has  withheld  from  you,  and  has  revealed  to  us  ; 
and  that  is  the  knowledge  of  the  true  religion,  by  which 
one  may  be  saved.'  When  he  thus  ignored  my  argument 
(which  was  probably  quite  unintelligible  to  him),  and 
delivered  his  simple  protest.  I  was  silenced,  and  at  the 
same  time  amused.  But  the  more  I  thought  it  over,  the 
more  instruction  I  saw  in  the  case." 

After  years  of  mental  trouble  Newman  found  that  the 
Mohammedan  carpenter  was  near  the  truth  so  far  as 
English  ignorance  of  religion  was  concerned.  While  in 
India  I  often  recalled  the  incident,  about  which  I  had 
a  talk  with  Newman,  in  the  course  of  which  he  mentioned 
the  impression  made  upon  him  during  a  voyage  in  Persian 
waters.  "The  Persians  sat  on  deck  all  day  motionless, 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF  SACRIFICE         311 

never  lifting  their  eyes  from  their  books,  their  scriptures 
and  poets,  which  seemed  to  give  them  serene  happiness." 
The  late  Professor  Palmer  of  Cambridge,  when  giving  me 
his  translation  of  a  Persian  poem  for  my  "  Sacred  Antho- 
logy," said,  "I  tell  my  friends  that  if  they  study  care- 
fully Persian  literature  they  will  know  something  about 
religion."  Would  it  not  be  well  if  young  men  aspiring 
to  missionary  work  were  first  sent  out  to  these  oriental 
countries  under  engagement  not  to  criticise  their  existing 
religions  until  they  had  passed  a  year  or  two  in  studying 
them?  Were  they  to  sweep  diligently  even  among  these 
repulsive  sacrifices  and  ceremonies  of  the  more  uneducated 
Hindus,  such  uncommitted  students  might  find  a  pearl  of 
price  which  the  Christian  fathers  possessed,  but  which 
has  been  lost  under  the  invasions  of  metaphysics  and  the- 
ology. If  one  reads  the  works  of  Irenaeus,  Tertullian, 
Origen,  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  he  finds  a  doctrine  of  Re- 
demption which,  however  mingled  with  superstition,  at 
least  harmonizes  with  Divine  Love  and  Justice.  Their 
faith  never  imagined  that  the  Father  had  required  the 
death  of  his  Son.  The  sacrifice  was  solely  to  Satan,  to 
whom  the  human  race  was  under  a  bond  which  not  only 
doomed  mankind  to  a  future  hell,  but  also  so  corrupted 
them  in  this  world  that  they  were  not  admissible  to  the 
divine  kingdom.  This  morally  sublime  idea  of  a  divine 
being  spontaneously  offering  himself  to  be  subject  to  Satan, 
and  go  to  hell  for  the  ransom  of  mankind,  was  repudiated 
by  Athanasius  towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  The 
jealousy  of  the  Hebrew  deity,  unwilling  to  admit  any 
limit  to  his  power,  even  in  the  domain  of  Diabolism, 
brought  Christendom  to  that  conception  which  we  think 
especially  horrible  among  savages,  —  Human  Sacrifice! 
Where  Origen  beheld  a  pure  God  so  loving  the  world  as 


312  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

to  sacrifice  himself  to  the  dark  and  evil  Powers  of 
nature  as  a  substitute  for  the  doomed  race,  the  modern 
theologian  now  sees  a  God  substituted  for  those  evil 
Powers  and  demanding  the  death  of  Christ  for.  his  own 
satisfaction. 

I  have  gone  into  this  anomaly  of  Christian  history 
in  order  to  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  the  lost  Pearl.  The 
religious  spirit  of  the  oriental  world  is  just  that  of  the 
early  Christian  believers.  All  of  these  sacrifices  of  goats 
which  I  saw  at  Kalighat  and  Allahabad  were  offered  to 
those  same  dark  and  evil  Powers.  They  are  meant  to 
placate  the  personified  diseases  and  agonies  which  I  saw 
in  the  "  devil-dances  "  at  Colombo.  To  Vishnu  or  his  ava- 
tars no  human  sacrifices  were  ever  sanctioned  by  any  real 
Hindu  religion.  Suttee  (Sati)  was  never  a  sacrifice ;  it  was 
a  wife  gladly  accompanying  her  lord  in  a  chariot  of  fire  to 
an  earthly  paradise  there  to  dwell  with  him  in  joy  forever. 
The  effort  to  prove  that  human  sacrifices  occurred  under 
the  car  of  Juggenauth  has  totally  failed.  The  lower 
classes  still  continue  the  animal  sacrifices  on  great  festi- 
val occasions,  but  one  cannot  say  how  far  this  is  due  to 
the  motive  of  propitiation,  or  simply  the  continuance  of 
old  usages  without  any  conscious  purpose.  At  any  rate, 
the  presence  of  blood  on  any  altar  in  India  means  a  sac- 
rifice to  some  demon.  The  only  offerings  on  the  altars  of 
the  supreme  deities  are  flowers.  The  following  sentences  I 
picked  out  of  a  translation  from  the  Agni  Purana  by  H.  H. 
Wilson,  F.  R.  S.,  —  a  manuscript  in  the  India  House 
library  in  London  :  — 

That  is  the  best  worship  which  is  made  without  the 
expectation  of  the  attainment  of  any  particular  object; 
the  worst  is  that  which  is  performed  for  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  particular  end. 


ANCIENT  HINDU  CHRISTIANS  313 

He  who  adores  Vishnu  should  behold  him  in  every 
creature  and  every  creature  in  him. 

The  worshipper  shall  do  homage  to  himself.  He  shall 
think  in  himself  that  the  spirit  which  exists  in  the  crown 
of  his  head  has  dispelled  the  darkness  of  his  body,  inter- 
nal and  external,  and  endowed  the  whole  form  and  the 
sense,  so  that  he  may  consider  and  say,  "  I  am  divine,"  and 
lay  hold  on  the  sword  of  knowledge. 

The  Lord  of  Life  (Vishnu)  should  not  be  worshipped 
with  flowers  that  have  faded.  Those  that  grow  in  thine 
own  garden  are  far  better  than  those  of  any  other.  With 
the  flowers  gathered  there  must  be  reverence  —  itself  a 
flower. 

There  is  in  the  intellect  a  sacred  lotus  to  which  every 
breath  is  wafted,  and  in  it  lost.  He  who  shall  contemplate 
this  flower  in  the  intellect  shall  find  it  full  of  splendour, 
beyond  the  collective  light  of  many  moons,  and  near  unto 
the  Deity. 

The  Hindu  Christians  found  by  Cosmas  Indicopleustes 
in  the  sixth  century — a  large  number  of  congregations  with 
a  bishop  ordained  in  Persia  —  were  called  "  Christians  of 
St.  Thomas."  They  were  united  with  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  1599,  and  seven  years  later  the  Jesuit  father, 
Robert  De  Nobili,  conceived  the  plan  of  accommodating 
himself  and  his  mission  to  Hindu  customs.  He  encoun- 
tered strong  opposition  in  his  order,  but  the  violent  con- 
troversy after  thirteen  years  was  decided  by  Pope  Gregory 
XV  in  his  favour,  and  the  church  in  India  largely  in- 
creased until  the  sacrificial  dogmas  were  introduced  about 
two  centuries  later.  The  whole  subject  requires  a  minute 
historical  and  critical  examination  never  given  it.  But 
it  is  certain  that  if  the  Hindus  could  be  induced  to  adopt 
the  theology  of  a  blood  sacrifice  to  any  deity  that  deity 
would  fall  to  the  level  of  those  evil  beings  to  whom  goats 
are  now  sacrificed. 


314  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

The  fundamental  division  between  the  oriental  religions 
and  Christianity  is  the  merit  principle  of  the  former  and 
the  vicarious  principle  of  the  latter.  The  missionaries  in 
sounding  the  changes  on  the  superiority  of  the  Christian 
nations  in  wealth  are  using  their  best  argument.  People 
who  can  relieve  their  consciences  by  claiming  indemnity 
for  their  sins  through  Christ  are  more  free  in  action,  and 
if  the  indemnity  did  not  equally  include  bad  actions  a 
philosophic  secularist  might  rejoice  in  what  strikes  the 
oriental  mind  as  worldliness.  The  grievous  burden  of 
oriental  religion  is  that  the  personal  merits  are  in  the 
larger  part  not  real  and  practical  merits,  but  a  heritage 
of  rites  and  ceremonies,  points  of  etiquette  demanded  by 
imaginary  deities.  These  deities  were  no  doubt  evolved 
out  of  mere  phrases,  —  as  if  out  of  such  Christian  phrases 
for  Jehovah  as  "  Ancient  of  Days,"  "  Creator,"  "  Maker," 
"  Almighty,"  "  Heavenly  Father,"  "  First  Person,"  etc., 
each  epithet  was  severally  personified,  each  personification 
giving  rise  to  a  new  brood. 

By  this  process  the  poetic  beauty  was  lost  from  the 
early  conceptions.  In  1838  Emerson  in  his  address  to  the 
divinity  students  at  Cambridge  said :  "  The  idioms  of 
his  (Jesus')  language  and  the  figures  of  his  rhetoric  have 
usurped  the  place  of  his  truth ;  and  churches  are  not  built 
on  his  principles,  but  on  his  tropes.  Christianity  became 
a  Mythus,  as  the  poetic  teaching  of  Greece  and  of  Egypt, 
before."  The  result  of  the  similar  process  in  India  has 
apparently  been  more  serious,  because  it  was  not  so  much 
churches  that  were  built  on  the  tropes  as  homes  and 
haunted  minds.  Max  Miiller  noticed  that  the  sky  is  never 
spoken  of  as  "  blue  "  in  the  Bible  or  in  the  Vedas.  In  the 
Vedas  the  singers  could  hardly  think  of  colour  or  beauty 
in  a  sky  that  had  already  become  the  all-searching  eye  of 


INTEREST  IN   INDIAN  RELIGIONS      315 

Varuna  reflected  even  in  the  water.  Varuna  was  the  spe- 
cial guardian  of  morals,  but  unfortunately  not  merely  of 
human  morals.  Thus,  childless  Harischandra  having 
made  a  vow  to  Varuna  that  if  granted  children  he  would 
immolate  his  first-born  to  him,  a  son  (Rohita)  was  born. 
The  father  evaded  his  vow  and  Varuna  afflicted  him  (the 
father)  with  dropsy.  And  the  vengeance  for  that  unful- 
filled vow  went  on. 

Varuna  was  ultimately  supplanted  by  Dyaus,  a  name 
which  survives  in  Jupiter  (Dyaus-pater,  father  of 
Heaven).  And  what  the  outcome  of  this  development  of 
egoistic  divinity  was  we  know  by  Aristotle's  remark,  "  It 
would  be  ridiculous  for  any  one  to  say  that  he  loves  Jupi- 
ter." But  fear  may  remain  after  love  ceases,  and  haunts 
the  nursery  after  becoming  merely  formal  among  the  ma- 
ture. 

Since  the  English  government  has  assumed  in  India 
the  attitude  of  a  purely  secular  power,  entirely  neutral 
between  all  religions,  Christianity  included,  the  English 
residents  in  India  have  manifested  a  good  deal  of  interest 
in  the  various  systems  around  them.  The  cultivated 
gentlemen  of  the  civil  service  are  apt  to  be  those  who 
sought  office  in  India  because  of  their  appreciation  of 
the  grand  literature  and  historic  interest  of  the  country. 
There  is  no  longer  among  the  chaplains  sent  out  by  the 
English  Church  any  talk  about  "heathenism."  All  of 
which  is  favourable  for  leavening  the  Brahman  measures 
of  meal  with  that  polite  social  interest  which  dissenters 
and  Hindus  alike  regard  as  "  worldliness."  It  is,  however, 
possible  that  this  literary  and  philosophical  interest  of 
English  scholars  may  be  too  academic.  One  feels  at  every 
step  the  vast  distance  of  the  popular  worship  from  the  wit 
and  wisdom  of  the  ancient  books.  Respect  and  charity 


316  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

do  not  require  that  one  shall  applaud  any  religion  so 
indiscriminately  as  to  include  the  practical  excrescences 
in  which  are  accumulated  the  small  occasional  fanaticisms 
of  ages.  The  hurtful  thing  in  theological  error  is  not  in 
any  catechetical  formula;  into  that  an  individual  mind 
will  be  certain  to  read  its  own  ideas :  but  the  evil  is  done  in 
the  nests  of  old  custom  where  the  new  ideas  warm  into  life 
forces  of  practical  evil.  What  India  really  needs  is  not 
that  universal  political  suffrage  which  is  the  European 
and  American  kingdom  of  Heaven,  nor  the  abolition  of 
Brahman  caste,  —  which  is  not  at  all  like  the  luxurious 
and  privileged  aristocracy  of  other  countries,  but  more 
like  that  scholars'  caste  which  Emerson  hoped  for  in 
America :  the  need  is  for  a  happier  social  life,  with  gen- 
tlemen and  ladies  meeting  in  it  on  equal  terms,  and  the 
practical  emancipation  of  manners  and  habits  from  the 
ascetic  usages  which  the  cultured  Pandits  regard  as  an 
exoteric  necessity  for  popular  morality.  It  is  that  schol- 
arly Pandit  who  has  to  learn  from  scholarly  England  that 
the  greatest  immorality  is  any  system  that  sits  authorita- 
tively on  every  woman  and  child  and  prevents  the  devel- 
opment of  the  moral  freedom  essential  to  real  virtue  as 
well  as  to  happiness. 


CHAPTER    XV 

Bombay  —  Alexander  Agassiz  —  Missionaries  —  England  in  India  —  "  The 
Old  Missionary" — Nelacantah  Goreh  —  Professor  Peterson  —  Hindu 
hymn  —  A  drive  with  Judge  West  —  Shankuran  Pandit  —  The  Towers 
of  Silence  —  Zoroasstrianism  —  Parsis  —  The  zenana  —  Ramabai  —  Ke- 
shub  Chunder  Sen  and  his  monument  —  Bhakti  (faith)  —  Indian 
sects  —  Faults  of  English  colonists  —  Samuel  Laing,  M.  P.,  "A  Modern 
Zoroastrian  "  —  The  ideal  Jain  temple. 

AS  I  was  approaching  Bombay  I  observed  with  delight 
a  group  of  large  monkeys  sporting  in  the  forest. 
They  looked  like  truant  children  come  out  to  see  our  train 
pass.  We  were  moving  slowly  and  I  had  a  chance  to 
wave  my  handkerchief  to  them,  and  to  see  them  dancing 
about  and  some  running  up  the  trees.  I  was  travelling 
with  Colonel  Miller  of  Bombay,  a  clever  and  solid  Eng- 
lish gentleman,  who  was  equal  to  any  amount  of  war  but 
could  not  forgive  Haeckel  for  having  killed  one  monkey. 
(It  was  a  peculiar  monkey  which  the  naturalist  wanted 
for  his  college  museum  at  Jena.)  Colonel  Miller,  an  am- 
ateur artist  also,  knew  monkeys  well,  and  agreed  with 
the  Sinhalese  that  to  kill  a  monkey  was  murder  even 
though  done  for  science.  Those  forest  monkeys  made  me 
realize  the  truth  of  Oersted's  chapter  on  the  "  Unbeauti- 
ful  in  Nature,"  in  which  he  affirms  that  it  is  only  when 
we  see  creatures  out  of  their  natural  place  that  we  do  not 
recognize  their  beauty. 

In  Bombay,  by  the  introduction  of  ray  South  Place 
friend  Mr.  Phipson,  I  was  accorded  a  room  in  the  Eng- 
lish Club.  There  were  eminent  scholars  in  the  place  who 


318  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

made  my  stay  happy  and  instructive.  With  Professor 
Peterson  of  Elphinstone  University  I  visited  the  caves  of 
Elephanta,  and  there  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  my 
old  acquaintance  Alexander  Agassiz.  He  resembled  his 
father  in  various  ways.  I  am  not  sure  that  he  is  old 
enough  to  remember  the  time  when  his  father  was  the 
most  widely  denounced  heretic  in  America,  and  from 
that  retrospective  point  of  view  saw  with  me  the  pictur- 
esqueness  of  the  same  heretic  becoming  a  darling  of  the 
pulpits  because  of  his  opposition  to  Darwinism.  It  re- 
quired only  a  decade  for  the  storm  that  raged  around 
the  heresy  that  mankind  was  not  descended  from  a  single 
pair  to  sink  into  a  teapot  tempest  beside  the  tornadoes 
caused  by  the  discovery  of  our  anthropoid  ancestry. 

The  offence  given  by  Agassiz  was  not  really  the  denial 
of  any  Biblical  statement,  it  being  indeed  easy  to  find  in 
the  Bible  suggestions  of  various  origins  of  mankind,  —  as 
for  instance  Cain's  emigration  to  the  Land  of  Nod,  finding 
a  wife  there  and  building  a  city.  The  trouble  was  that  the 
theory  of  Agassiz  did  away  with  the  fundamental  faith  "  in 
Adam's  fall  we  sinned  all,"  and  logically  upset  the  entire 
system  of  missions  to  peoples  not  descended  from  the 
fair  and  perfect  Adam  and  Eve  created  by  Milton  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden.  And  that  corollary  was  not  evaded  by 
Agassiz ;  he  said  it  was  a  grievous  mistake  to  try  and  in- 
troduce our  own  doctrines  and  institutions  among  races 
totally  distinct  by  origin  and  development. 

After  my  travels  in  India  I  reached  the  conclusion  that 
the  possession  of  that  vast  country  by  England  is  a  great 
blessing  to  mankind  as  well  as  to  India,  this  being 
largely  due  to  the  fact  that  religion  had  nothing  to  do  with 
its  origin  ;  also  that  the  English  monarch  being  the  official 
head  of  Brahmanism,  it  is  a  sort  of  disloyalty  for  Chris- 


ENGLAND   IN   INDIA  319 

tianity  to  interfere  with  the  natural  religion  of  the  country. 
The  old  East  India  Company  was  a  purely  mercantile  con- 
cern ;  instead  of  caring  about  the  institutions  or  morals  of 
the  country,  the  harems  of  some  old  tradesmen  are  still 
associated  with  several  groups  of  houses ;  they  never  con- 
sidered it  necessary  that  the  natives  should  be  clothed  like 
the  English.  In  this  way  the  traditions  of  personal  liberty 
in  India  were  solidified  before  the  country  passed  under 
what  is  called  the  "  benevolent  despotism  "  of  England. 
And  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  faults  of  the  government 
in  India,  benevolent  it  certainly  is  in  the  most  important 
sense,  —  namely,  that  it  has  entirely  ended  the  old  chronic 
wars  between  tribes  and  races  on  points  of  theology.  In 
China  and  Manila,  American  missionaries,  —  especially  no- 
torious since  the  time  of  Judson  for  their  ignorance,  —  can 
continue  to  advance  the  cross  by  the  sword,  but  in  India 
Christianity  is  compelled  to  depend  on  its  merits  and  at- 
tractions. The  Taeping  insurrection  and  massacres  in 
China  were  not  the  work  of  any  native  religionists  in  that 
country,  but  of  a  powerful  chief  excessively  converted  by 
some  American  missionaries,  who  began  butchering  Confu- 
cians and  Buddhists  in  accordance  with  the  divine  orders 
in  the  Bible  for  exterminating  the  Canaanites  and  the 
priests  of  Baal.  If  the  missionaries  in  India  only  knew 
more  of  the  people  they  would  tremble  to  reflect  what 
might  occur  if  those  people  should  accept  the  Bible  as  their 
guide.  English  and  American  Christians  adapt  themselves 
at  home  to  their  systems,  and  do  not  accept  literally  the 
sayings  ascribed  to  Jesus  that  he  had  come  not  to  send 
peace  but  a  sword,  and  that  his  disciples  should  sell  their 
garments  to  buy  swords.  But  a  long  and  tragical  history 
has  shown  that  the  Hindus  are  apt  to  take  abstractions  in 
serious  and  practical  ways. 


320  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

A  little  book  by  Sir  William  Hunter,  entitled  "  The 
Old  Missionary,"  —  he  told  me  it  was  drawn  from  fact, 
—  reveals  the  reason  why  men  of  ability  and  learning 
have  withdrawn  from  the  missionary  field  in  India.  The 
missionary,  albeit  not  unorthodox,  had  emphasized  the 
gentle,  benevolent,  and  humane  elements  of  his  religion, 
and  blended  them  with  the  same  elements  in  the  religion 
of  the  humble  people  around  him.  He  had  gained  their 
affection,  and  built  up  a  peaceful  and  happy  parish  of 
native  Christians,  none  of  whom  could  understand  a  word 
of  the  creeds,  but  were  all  able  to  feel  the  charm  of  his 
spirit  and  his  charities.  But  one  brilliant  Hindu  youth  of 
his  parish  resolved  to  become  a  clergyman;  he  studied 
the  Bible  and  the  Church  formulas  critically  and  discov- 
ered what  the  old  missionary  had  kept  in  the  background. 
He  insisted  on  the  letter  of  the  creeds  and  sacraments, 
split  up  the  old  missionary's  parish,  ruined  all  his  work, 
and  brought  his  grey  hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave. 

A  gentleman  at  the  English  Club  at  Allahabad  sent  me 
to  an  old  Hindu  Solomon  there,  who  spoke  perfect  Eng- 
lish, and  of  whom  I  inquired  how  many  Hindu  Christians 
there  were  in  the  place.  He  asked  me  how  many  English 
officials  there  were  there.  I  answered,  "  Let  us  say  twenty." 
"  How  many  servants  are  allowed  each  family  ?  "  "  Per- 
haps five."  "Five  times  twenty  is  one  hundred.  There 
are  one  hundred  Hindu  Christians  in  Allahabad  as  long 
as  those  families  stay."  "  But  what  do  their  priests  and 
relations  say  ? "  "  Not  a  word.  Nobody  supposes  their 
religion  is  changed  any  more  than  their  complexion." 

The  "Cowley  Brothers"  are  connected  with  the  Church 
of  England  in  a  technical  way,  but  their  mission  at 
Poonah  is  not,  I  was  told,  adopted  by  the  Church,  and 
amounts  only  to  a  small  colony  of  extreme  ritualists  gath- 


NELACANTAH  GOREH  321 

ered  under  the  headship  of  Nelacantah  Goreh.  I  was 
sorry  that  I  could  not  visit  Poonah  for  the  purpose  of 
seeing  this  man,  of  whom  I  had  heard  much  from  Max 
Miiller,  but  I  was  told  by  friends  in  Bombay  that  I  would 
see  in  him  only  a  ruin.  He  was  a  man  of  high  caste  and 
of  great  learning,  who  by  careful  study  became  dissatis- 
fied with  his  Hindu  religion,  and  went  to  the  neighbouring 
mission  station  and  asked  to  be  received  as  a  Christian. 
It  was  a  mission  of  illiterate  preachers  from  London  con- 
venticles, who  could  not  in  the  least  appreciate  the  great 
man  who  had  come  into  their  hands.  They  sent  him  to 
their  mission  house  in  London,  where  he  was  set  to  do 
the  drudgery  of  the  establishment,  —  carrying  boxes  of 
books  and  tracts,  and  in  the  intervals  doing  manual 
work.  All  the  brains  of  the  mission  in  India  and  in 
London  put  together  would  not  have  made  one  brain 
equal  to  that  of  this  poor  Hindu  scholar.  He  endured  this 
for  two  or  three  years.  "One  day,"  said  Max  Miiller, 
"there  entered  my  library  a  fine-looking  man  who  gave 
his  name  as  Nelacantah  Goreh,  and  in  attempting  to 
speak  to  me  in  English  faltered,  and  sat  down  and  wept. 
I  recognized  at  once  that  I  had  before  me  an  Indian  of 
importance,  and  began  talking  to  him  in  Sanscrit.  On 
hearing  this,  he  arose  with  shining  face,  and  clasped  my 
hand,  and  answering  me  in  Sanscrit,  said  that  he  had 
been  a  slave  in  London,  and  that  at  last  his  patience  and 
strength  had  broken  down.  He  had  read  some  of  my 
books  and  sought  me  out.  His  story  deeply  impressed 
and  even  moved  me  ;.  I  called  my  wife,  and  after  together 
making  out  the  whole  case,  she  insisted  that  he  should 
remain  in  our  house  for  the  time.  He  was  a  most  modest 
man,  but  full  of  knowledge,  and  we  found  his  conversation 
—  for  he  spoke  fair  English  —  very  interesting.  His  ac- 


322  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

quaintance  with  the  various  schools  of  Indian  philosophy 
was  so  great,  and  his  powers  of  expression  so  excellent, 
that  I  persuaded  him  to  write  a  treatise  on  the  subject.  I 
had  in  my  library  all  the  books  to  which  he  might  wish  to 
refer,  and  with  eagerness  he  set  himself  to  the  work  on  a 
table  provided  in  his  chamber.  His  little  book  was  pub- 
lished, and  duly  valued  by  those  interested  in  its  sub- 
ject —  the  Vedic  Philosophy  —  and  a  good  literary  career 
seemed  to  open  before  him,  but  his  religious  ideas  and 
feelings  were  overwhelming ;  possibly,  too,  some  of  the 
High  Churchmen  had  heard  of  his  story  and  got  hold  of 
him.  At  any  rate,  he  determined  to  return  to  India,  and 
the  last  I  heard  of  him  was  from  a  friend  who  recog- 
nized him  in  a  motionless  figure  prostrated  before  a  cross." 

I  have  followed  pretty  closely  Max  Miiller's  statement, 
which  I  wrote  down  at  the  time,  and  gave  a  discourse  on 
Nelacantah  Goreh  to  my  people  at  South  Place.  I  was 
told  at  Bombay  that  Nelacantah  Goreh  was  entirely  with- 
out influence  at  Poonah  on  his  countrymen,  that  he  was 
still  kneeling  before  the  cross.  A  living  entombment ! 

In  the  gigantic  image  at  Elephanta  of  the  Hindu  Triad, 
Professor  Peterson  enabled  me  to  trace  their  transfigu- 
ration into  the  peaceful  grandeur  of  the  Buddha.  The 
professor  presented  me  with  the  subjoined  translation 
which  he  had  made  from  the  ancient  "  Subliaishitavali  " 
(garland  of  sweet  sayings)  of  Vallabhandeva :  — 

Heart,  my  heart !  You  go  down  into  hell  and  mount 
high  above  the  heavens  ;  in  emptiness  of  spirit  you  wan- 
der over  the  universe ;  but  not  by  w.andering  abroad  will 
you  lay  hold  on  God,  who  is  within  you,  who  only  can 
give  you  rest. 

There  is  this  bond  between  me  and  thee  —  I  am  of  all 
men  the  most  miserable,  thou  art  of  all  beings  the  most 
merciful:  it  cannot  be,  Lord,  that  thou  wilt  not  save  me. 


THE  WALKISHWUR  TANK  323 

If  I  were  not  a  great  sinner,  if  I  were  not  distracted  by 
fear,  if  I  were  not  consumed  by  passion,  what  need  should 
I  have  of  a  saviour  ? 

In  our  sickness  Himself  is  the  physician  and  Himself 
the  medicine ;  in  darkness,  a  light ;  in  rough  places,  a 
path  ;  in  danger,  a  protection,  and  in  adversity,  a  brother  ; 
He  is  the  ship  that  shall  bear  me  safely  over  life's  un- 
sounded sea. 

Judge  West,  whose  studies  of  ancient  Pars!  literature 
had  helped  me  in  my  "  Sacred  Anthology,"  was  deep  in 
Indian  lore.  He  drove  with  me  about  the  country  in  his 
carriage  and  took  pains  that  I  should  see  every  object  of 
special  interest  and  significance. 

Among  the  places  we  visited  was  the  Walkishwur 
Tank,  associated  with  a  beautiful  passage  in  the  "  Ra- 
mayana."  The  lake  is  said  to  have  sprung  up  at  a  point 
where  the  arrow  of  Dasaratha,  father  of  Rama,  fell  upon 
what  he  supposed  to  be  a  stag,  but  which  was  Shravan, 
seeking  water  for  his  parents,  athirst  in  their  wanderings. 
It  is  in  Hindu  romance  what  fountains  called  from  rock 
or  desert  by  Jewish  or  Christian  saints  are  in  other  tradi- 
tions. The  water  is  surrounded  by  temples  of  remarkable 
beauty.  There  is  a  narrow  cleft  leading  down  to  the  sea, 
through  which  plucky  pilgrims  are  said  to  be  drawn,  as  a 
means  of  being  "  born  again  "  —  similar  rock  clefts,  with 
similar  associations,  being  known  in  England. 

In  Bombay  Shankuran  Pandit,  editor  of  the  "  Rig  Veda," 
one  of  the  noblest  men  I  ever  met,  invited  a  company  of 
his  friends  to  meet  me.  Originally  from  different  religions, 
they  were  emancipated  minds  ;  but  none  of  them  appeared 
to  dream  of  the  religious  institutions  of  India  ever  being 
changed.  They  had  fraternally  formed  their  little  oasis 
of  thought  and  culture  in  Bombay,  and  the  vast  deserts 
and  jungles  of  superstition  working  on  by  processes  of 


324  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

natural  evolution,  supplied  them  with  materials  for  psy- 
chological and  social  studies.  Having  no  notion  that  such 
phenomena  were  caused  by  any  supernatural  power,  their 
reason  was  not  haunted  by  deity  or  demon.  In  these  con- 
versations the  few  Parsis  present  were  rather  silent  and 
shy,  though  it  was  my  especial  desire  to  get  at  their  ideas. 

In  Cambridge,  England,  I  was  told  an  anecdote  of  the 
Rev.  Professor  King,  author  of  an  excellent  work  on  "  The 
Gnostics."  A  Parsi  student  confided  to  him  that  he  had 
some  thought  of  becoming  a  Christian.  The  antiquarian 
being  stronger  than  the  clergyman  in  the  professor,  he 
remarked,  "There  are  so  many  Christians  in  the  world, 
and  so  few  Parsis,  don't  you  think  you  had  better  stay 
where  you  are  ? "  Unfortunately,  however,  many  of  these 
Parsis  have  travelled  far  away  from  the  noble  religion  of 
Zoroaster,  —  about  as  far  as  Christians  from  the  similar 
religion  of  Jesus.  For  Jesus  and  Zoroaster  alike  said  of 
the  tares,  "  An  enemy  hath  done  this."  It  is  only  in  the 
traditional  Parsi  ceremonies  that  I  could  discover  that 
morally  essential  recognition  of  Ahriman  which  relieved 
Zoroaster's  deity  from  responsibility  for  the  evils  of 
nature. 

By  the  kindness  of  a  Parsi  gentleman  I  was  enabled  to 
visit  the  Towers  of  Silence.  There  is  a  strange,  almost 
mystical,  solemnity  about  this  garden,  in  which  at  sunrise 
I  stood  for  a  time  alone,  gazing  at  the  towers  from  the 
distance  of  thirty  yards,  beyond  which  none  must  pass  who 
would  return  to  the  abode  of  men.  As  soon  as  a  body  is 
dead  it  becomes  the  possession  of  Ahriman.  A  demon 
tenant  of  his  occupies  it. 

A  chant  reached  my  ear  and  presently  a  group  of  men 
in  snow-white  garments  and  turbans  entered  the  gateway, 
bearing  their  shrouded  burden.  They  passed  silently  and 


AT  THE  TOWERS  OF  SILENCE         325 

quickly  towards  the  towers.  Presently  there  appeared, 
twenty  yards  behind  them,  another  group  in  snow-white 
robes  chanting  as  they  rapidly  moved,  their  chant  being  very 
different  from  any  I  had  heard  about  Hindu  temples.  It 
was  entirely  in  minor  or  whining  tones,  and  must  have  come 
from  some  era  in  which  human  nature  had  not  yet  found 
the  consolation  represented  in  the  features  of  this  funeral, 
which  recalled  the  Egyptian  festivities  on  the  entrance  of  a 
soul  into  paradise.  The  singers  speedily  returned  to  the 
garden,  where  they  formed  a  regular  group  and  intoned 
their  conversation,  occasionally  breaking  out  into  a  chant. 
I  was  informed  that  they  spoke  of  the  virtues  of  the 
deceased  and  chanted  hymns  of  the  Avesta.  I  listened, 
gazing  at  the  top  of  the  tower,  whereon  the  body  had  been 
deposited  and  its  limbs  fastened,  face  upward  to  the  sun. 
Already  at  its  coming  a  circle  of  vultures  had  descended 
to  perch  around  the  parapet,  where  they  sat  perfectly  still 
during  the  presence  of  the  corpse-carriers.  The  moment 
when  the  body  was  abandoned  by  its  bearers  was  reported 
by  the  slow  and  dignified  disappearance  of  these  birds, 
which  presently  rose  into  the  air,  each  bearing  some  last 
contribution  of  a  mortal  to  the  immortal  Cosmos.  Some- 
how this  scene  impressed  me  more  than  the  burning  pyres 
of  the  Ganges.  There  I  felt  how  much  pleasanter  than 
burial  to  the  imagination  it  would  be  to  contemplate  in 
one's  last  moments  ascending  in  that  fiery  chariot  to  cloud 
and  ether ;  here  I  felt  that  the  Parsi  had  a  more  poetic 
prospect  of  mingling  in  the  currents  of  organic  life,  smiling 
in  flowers,  singing  in  the  throats  of  birds,  smiling  again  in 
human  loveliness. 

The  modern  Parsis  are  rarely  Zoroastrians.  They  make 
much  of  the  ancient  Zoroastrian  phrases  and  details  and 
names,  which,  however,  only  form  the  frame  around  the  cen- 


326  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

tral  and  essential  principle  of  Zoroaster  —  DUALISM.  Per- 
haps it  might  be  strictly  described  as  religious  and  ethical 
Dualism,  as  one  cannot  feel  certain  that  Zoroaster  applied 
his  generalization  to  the  entire  constitution  of  nature, 
though  even  this  is  suggested  in  his  division  of  the  universe 
into  "the  living  and  the  not-living."  *  I  once  had  a  conver- 
sation at  the  Sorbonne  with  James  Darmesteter,  translator 
of  the  Zendavesta,  and  could  not  get  from  him  any  say- 
ing of  Zoroaster  justifying  the  notion  of  an  original  being 
from  whom  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman  —  the  Good  Mind  and 
the  Evil  Mind  —  both  descended.  This  notion  has  been 
imported  by  Parsi  theology,  and  I  cannot  help  suspecting 
that  this  importation  was  from  the  more  western  world, 
where  the  idea  of  an  omnipotent  Creator  and  supreme 
Ruler  of  the  universe  was  evolved. 

Under  a  like  pressure  from  Science  the  belief  in  a  per- 
sonal -Satan  steadily  declined,  and  with  him  the  concep- 
tion of  a  redeemer  of  mankind  from  satanic  thraldom. 
The  mind  of  the  Protestant  world  became  substantially 
deistic.  The  time  foreseen  by  Paul  (1  Cor.  xv,  28)  had 
come  in  a  subconscious  spiritual  way,  —  "  When  all 
things  have  been  subjected  unto  him,  then  also  shall  the 
Son  himself  be  subjected  to  him,  that  God  may  be  all 
in  all."  A  fortiori  the  devil  was  subjected,  became 
God's  devil,  and  it  being  no  longer  admissible  that  God 
should  be  even  indirectly  the  author  of  sin  or  a  tempter, 
Satan  virtually  disappeared  from  Christian  theology. 

But  when  all  of  these  preternatural  powers  had  faded 
out  of  the  scientific  and  philosophic  mind,  the  idea  re- 
mained of  a  Cosmos,  and  of  its  corollary,  the  essential 

1  "Gaya  and  ajySiti,"  translated  by  Haug  "reality  and  unreality." 
The  translation  "  living  and  not-living ' '  was  sent  me  by  Max  Miiller  in 
answer  to  my  request  for  an  exact  rendering. 


ZOROASTRIAN   DUALISM  327 

uViity  of  nature.  This  Monism  is  almost  a  scientific 
axiom  in  England  and  America,  but  on  what  evidence 
did  it  rest?  Why  should  things  all  come  from  one  sub- 
stance instead  of  two,  or  even  more?  In  reading  my 
friend  Herbert  Spencer's  theory  of  the  "  unknowable  from 
which  all  things  proceed,"  I  felt  that  this  idea  of  unity 
was  a  sequel  to  Deism,  and  the  survival  of  a  superstition. 

Though  I  was  not  able  to  search  nature  scientifically, 
the  Zoroastrian  generalization  — "  the  living  and  the 
not-living  "  —  organic  and  inorganic  —  supplied  a  fair 
provisional  theory  for  ethical  studies,  where  I  had  more 
competency.  I  always  regret  that  it  was  only  after  John 
Stuart  Mill's  death  that  I  discovered  (in  his  Autobio- 
graphy) that  he  inclined  to  the  Zoroastrian  Dualism.  I 
was  much  impressed  by  the  work  of  Rev.  Dr.  Abbot,  a 
learned  educator  in  London, "  Kernel  and  Husk,"  in  which 
he  concedes  to  rationalism  most  of  its  reclamations,  but 
insists  on  the  existence  of  a  force  of  evil  in  nature  not 
divinely  controlled.  He  could  not,  he  said,  visit  the  poor 
and  suffering  and  tell  them  their  agonies  were  inflicted  by 
his  deity.  It  was  this  transfer  of  the  issue  from  the  old 
metaphysical  one  of  moral  responsibility  to  the  tortures 
in  nature  which  was  so  striking  in  Master  Abbot's  book. 

Ormuzd  (Ahuramazda,  the  shining  one)  in  the  Zend- 
avesta  is  not  in  our  modern  sense  a  god  at  all ;  he  is  a 
source  of  light  trying  to  inspire  men  and  women  to  con- 
tend against  the  forces  of  darkness ;  he  asks  for  no  glori- 
fication, claims  no  majesty ;  he  is  lowly  and  in  pain,  and 
tells  Zoroaster  that  he  is  unable  to  achieve  anything  ex- 
cept through  the  souls  of  good  and  wise  men  and  women. 
Woman  is  central  in  Zoroaster's  religion ;  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  female  (Anahita),  and  her  sister-saviour  on  earth 
is  Armaiti.  There  are  no  beings  higher  than  these  women. 


328  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

Ahuramazda's  struggle  with  Ahriman  is  not  a  celestial 
one  —  not  against  rebel  angels  or  giants — but  to  repress 
savagery  and  violence  on  earth,  to  humanize  the  people, 
develop  fine  souls,  sow  the  fields,  and  make  the  wilderness 
blossom  like  a  rose. 

One  afternoon  when  Judge  West,  the  great  scholar  in 
Parsi  religion  and  literature,  was  taking  me  on  a  drive 
about  a  league  outside  Bombay,  it  appeared  to  me  pre- 
sently that  I  was  making  an  excursion  into  Eden. 
Whether  it  was  the  flowers  and  vines,  the  trees  and  birds, 
or  the  riches  of  this  man's  mind  lavished  on  me  when  he 
found  that  Zoroaster  was  my  star  in  the  East,  it  seemed 
a  sufficient  end  of  existence  to  be  out  there  under  the  soft 
sky.  Suddenly  the  judge  stopped  his  horse,  as  something 
caught  his  eye.  On  the  trunk  of  a  large  tree  some  natural 
formation  suggestive  of  the  phallic  yoni  had  been  made 
realistic  by  fresh  paint.  It  struck  me  as  coarse  and  ob- 
scene, but  on  thinking  it  over  afterwards  I  concluded  that 
the  impression  was  due  to  my  own  provincialism.  There 
was  really  a  suggestion  of  the  primitive  pure  imagination 
to  which  all  things  are  pure  recognizing  the  symbol  of 
creative  life.  The  sanctified  snake  had  not  yet  crept  into 
this  little  garden  to  make  the  Hindu  Eve  ashamed,  and 
there  were  several  floral  offerings  and  sacrificial  cakes  at 
foot  of  the  tree. 

How  often  do  the  old  Biblical  legends  occur  to  me  in 
India!  The  tree-and-serpent  legend — so  unrelated  to  He- 
braism that  it  is  not  alluded  to  afterwards  in  the  Bible 
until  Paul  dug  it  up  as  a  stone  to  throw  at  womankind  — 
finds  its  right  place  in  oriental  mythology.  Cain  (smith} 
and  Abel  (passing)  are  allegorical  representatives  of 
the  great  schism  between  the  two  wings  of  the  Aryan  race, 
—  the  agriculturists,  founders  of  settlements  and  cities, 


ENGLISH,   OR  ARYAN?  329 

workers  in  metal,  in  Persia,  where  blood  sacrifice  was 
abhorred ;  and  the  nomads  who  after  vainly  besieging  the 
settlements  descended  on  India  and  enslaved  its  tribes 
and  continued  to  offer  blood  like  Abel  until  it  became 
human  blood.  There  is  a  significant  oriental  tradition 
that  the  wife  found  by  the  artisan  (Cain)  in  the  land  of 
Nod  was  named  "  Azura."  The  general  name  in  Persia 
for  a  divinity  is  "  Asura,"  and  of  course  the  word  means 
demon  in  India. 

Walking  in  a  crowded  and  rather  poor  part  of  Bom- 
bay, in  company  with  an  intelligent  Babu,  I  remarked 
just  before  us  a  large  and  shapely  woman  whose  legs,  bare 
to  the  knees,  were  white.  "  Do  European  women  also  go 
barelegged  out  here  ?  "  I  asked  the  Babu.  "  She  is  Hindu," 
he  said  ;  "  the  whiteness  is  leprosy."  We  could  not  see 
the  woman's  face,  being  behind  her,  but  I  felt  certain  that 
the  white  legs,  with  some  pink  tint,  were  not  diseased.  She 
was  carrying  a  basket,  —  or  rather  something  of  that  kind, 
—  and  her  dress  was  like  that  of  others  around  her,  none 
of  them  seeming  to  notice  her  peculiarity.  One  sees  now 
and  then  a  Eurasian  of  light  complexion,  but  my  Hindu 
companion  did  not  suggest  that  as  an  explanation  in  this 
case,  and  I  concluded  that  it  was  either  that  of  an  Eng- 
lishwoman or  of  "  reversion  "  to  the  Aryan  type.  All  of 
the  great  European  races  are  derived  by  ethnographers 
from  those  Aryans  ("nobles"),  but  how  did  the  latter 
lose  their  white  complexion  ?  It  was  told  of  a  Methodist 
preacher,  in  slavery  times,  that  on  coming  to  his  Southern 
circuit  he  said  from  the  pulpit,  "This  county  has  the 
reputation  of  being  particularly  religious  and  moral,  but 
where  did  all  those  mulatto  faces  in  that  negro  gallery 
come  from  ?  "  Those  singers  of  the  Vedas,  come  from  the 
paradise  of  the  gods  in  the  Himalayas,  who  described 


330  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

themselves  as  "  fair,"  and  subdued  the  "  dark  "  aborigines 
of  India  and  ruled  them  two  thousand  years,  may  have 
given  rise  to  the  legend  that  the  sons  of  the  gods  were 
fascinated  by  the  daughters  of  men.1  The  high-caste 
Brahman  s  are  of  lighter  complexion  than  the  lower  castes, 
but  if  their  ancestors  were  ever  as  white  as  the  Indo-Ger- 
manic,  the  dark  pigment  of  the  aborigines  must  have  been 
much  more  potent  than  the  white  of  their  masters. 

Deterioration  is  the  inevitable  fate  of  the  conquerors 
and  enslavers  of  weaker  races.  Much  is  said  of  spreading 
civilization ;  but  whatever  civilization  —  if  there  be  any  — 
goes  into  the  subjugated,  goes  out  of  the  conquered.  The 
finest-looking  and  the  fairest  of  the  descendants  of  the 
ancient  Aryans  are  not  the  Brahmans  but  the  Parsis,  and 
before  they  were  driven  out  of  their  country  by  the  Mos- 
lems they  produced  a  literature  surpassing  that  of  India. 

Although  there  were  among  the  Parsis  in  Bombay  sev- 
eral erudite  Pahlavi  scholars,  —  Anklesaria,  Minochiharji, 
Patel,  —  I  was  disappointed  to  find  the  few  I  met  —  per- 
sonally attractive  as  they  were  —  unaware  of  the  surpass- 
ing beauty  of  their  ancient  religion  !  That  no  great  Pars! 
writer  appears  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  sombre 
genius  of  Buddha,  renouncing  the  world,  is  more  attractive 
to  the  puritanical  spirit  of  England  than  the  sunshine  of 
Zoroaster  telling  men  that  heaven  is  in  their  own  homes 
and  fields. 

I  experienced  a  sense  of  social  suffocation  in  meeting 
companies  of  cultivated  Hindu  gentlemen  without  the 

1  The  paradise  of  the  goda,  not  unpoetically  located  in  the  shining  heights 
one  sees  across  the  plains  of  India,  are  still  populated  by  the  theosophic 
imagination  with  Mahatmas,  —  the  "Brothers,"  —  some  of  whom  have 
lived  hundreds  or  even  thousands  of  years  !  It  must  have  been  an  over- 
sight of  our  admirable  Sir  Martin  Conway  that  in  climbing  the  highest 
of  those  peaks  he  did  not  "  interview  "  Indira  nor  even  Koothoomi. 


RAMABAI  331 

presence  of  ladies.  Some  of  these  scholars  confessed  to 
a  similar  feeling.  They  deeply  deplored  the  then  recent 
conversion  of  Ramabai  to  Catholicism.  This  highly  edu- 
cated Hindu  lady,  having  emancipated  herself  from  the 
zenana,  went  about  giving  lectures  to  her  sex  on  their 
duties  and  rightful  position.  Her  lectures  were  attended 
by  many  Hindu  ladies,  and  it  appeared  that  the  zenana 
glacier  was  about  to  melt  under  her  eloquence ;  but  she 
came  under  the  influence  of  Nelacantah  Goreh  of  the 
Cowley  Brothers,  and  went  farther  than  he  desired  in 
the  Christian  direction  he  pointed  her.  She  went  into  a 
Roman  Catholic  sisterhood.  This  ended  all  her  influence 
among  her  sisters  and  her  own  race.  The  "  progressive  " 
Hindus  regarded  this  as  the  going  out  of  a  shining  light 
from  which  they  had  hoped  much.  And  some  of  us  who 
have  listened  to  Ramabai  in  England  and  America  share 
in  the  disappointment. 

It  is  probable  that  the  zenana  in  India  and  the  convents 
for  women  in  Europe  alike  originated  in  the  ages  of  tribal 
wars  and  invasions  when  the  protection  of  sanctuary  or 
asylum  established  itself.  My  friend  General  Pitt  Rivers 
studied  the  various  caps  worn  by  women  in  Brittany  and 
discovered  that  they  were  all  variations  of  the  nun's  cap.  In 
emerging  from  the  convent-asylum  the  women  would  proba- 
bly continue  this  badge  of  protection,  as  on  battlefields  a 
cross  on  the  arm  protects  those  who  are  there  for  succour. 
But  the  same  evolutionary  forces  which  have  drawn  the 
vast  majority  of  European  women  out  of  the  convent  have 
been  steadily  drawing  the  women  of  India  from  the  zenana. 
The  streets  of  Indian  cities  already  swarm  with  women, 
and  if  the  peaceful  regime  of  English  rule  is  not  overthrown 
by  the  recrudescent  militarism,  the  zenanas  are  likely  to 
become  as  antiquated  as  the  convents  of  France.  The 


332  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

women  seen  on  the  streets,  and  in  the  sacred  bathing-tanks, 
and  at  the  many  religious  festivals,  are  by  no  means  all  of 
the  "pariah"  class  ;  the  majority  of  them,  though  not  so 
richly  dressed  as  those  of  the  zenana,  —  judging  by  the 
high-caste  ladies  I  saw  at  the  Calcutta  Exposition  on 
Ladies'  Day,  —  are  quite  as  good-looking.  The  presence 
in  India  of  so  many  English  families,  whose  ladies  drive 
about  and  enjoy  themselves,  and  show  themselves  kind  and 
charitable  to  their  Hindu  neighbours,  is  doing  much  to 
unbar  the  doors  of  the  zenana.  These  English  ladies 
rarely  try  to  "convert"  their  neighbours;  that  is  "bad 
form." 

There  was  a  good  deal  of  conversation  among  the  ra- 
tionalistic Indians  in  Bombay,  of  all  types,  concerning  the 
deceased  Brahmo  leader,  Keshub  Chunder  Sen,  apropos 
of  the  proposal  of  leading  English  scholars  and  statesmen 
to  erect  a  monument  to  him.  At  the  risk  of  some  reitera- 
tion I  must  say  something  more  about  him. 

It  became  plain  to  me  that  Brahmoism  (Hindu  theism) 
had  proved  a  failure  so  far  as  the  hopes  of  its  founders 
and  friends  in  England  were  concerned.  It  was  in  my 
South  Place  Chapel  that  Rammohun  Roy  was  welcomed 
to  England  by  its  eloquent  minister,  W.  J.  Fox,  in  1834. 
That  was  a  dawn  of  the  new  interest  of  cultured  England 
in  Hindu  religion.  Mr.  Fox  was  surrounded  by  the  best 
men  and  women,  —  Harriet  Martineau,  Leigh  Hunt,  J.  S. 
Mill,  Eliza  and  Sarah  Flower  (who  wrote  "  Nearer,  my 
God,  to  Thee !  ")  and  all  of  the  leading  Unitarian  minis- 
ters. It  was  in  that  homage  to  the  grand  Indian  orator  who 
had  begun  the  work  of  emancipating  his  countrymen  from 
"  idolatry,"  as  it  is  called,  that  the  Unitarian  Association 
dropped  the  title  "  Christian  "  and  called  itself  "  The  Brit- 
ish and  Foreign  Unitarian  Association."  But  Rammohun 


RAMABAI 


KESHUB  CHUNDER  SEN  333 

Roy  was  a  man  of  the  world — though  by  no  means  a 
worldly  man  —  and  wished  to  free  his  countrymen  from 
their  ecstatic  superstition  about  absorption  in  deity.  He 
was  not  much  interested  in  Christianity  but  had  formed  a 
conception  of  Jesus  which  led  him  to  protest  against  the 
European  paintings  representing  him  (Jesus)  as  a  white 
man.  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  had  perhaps  heard  of  this.  He 
wrote  me  a  letter  from  India  saying  that  a  friend  of  his 
there  had  discovered  that  most  of  the  story  of  Christ  was 
derived  from  India,  and  asked  if  I  could  secure  a  London 
publisher  for  such  a  work.  I  replied  that  the  resemblances 
between  the  narratives  in  the  New  Testament  and  several 
in  Hindu  legends  had  been  much  discussed  in  Europe 
and  America,  but  a  learned  and  ably  written  book  of  that 
kind  would  surely  find  a  publisher  in  London.  Keshub 
was  such  an  egoist  that  he  could  not  learn  anything. 
When  he  visited  England  he  began  his  discourses  in  my 
Chapel,  and  with  several  of  his  companions  was  the  guest 
of  our  beloved  chapel  treasurer,  George  Hickson,  at 
Earlswood  House,  Highbury.  His  first  discourse  as  well 
as  his  conversation  revealed  to  me  that  he  had  come  to 
England  to  teach,  not  to  be  taught,  which  was  what  he 
needed.  At  the  great  reception  given  him  in  St.  James's 
Hall,  where  many  distinguished  men  and  women  were 
present,  he  appealed  to  them  passionately,  "  Come  unto 
me !  "  He  used  the  phrase  repeatedly,  and  the  impression 
was  not  pleasant.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  he  held 
some  vague  messianic  theory  of  his  mission.  Professor 
Newman  told  me  that  some  of  his  followers  once  knelt 
and  worshipped  him,  and  when  criticised  because  he  did 
not  prevent  them  he  said  that  he  did  not  like  to  stop  the 
flow  of  devout  religious  feeling.  He  used  the  word  Bhakti, 
I  think,  in  the  sense  of  divine  exaltation,  the  benefit  of 


334  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

which  did  not  depend  on  its  cause  or  the  object  to  which 
it  was  directed.  I  had  some  hopes  of  him  when  he  led  his 
people  into  the  movement  for  the  suppression  of  infant 
marriages,  but  in  the  midst  of  it  all  he  gave  his  own 
infant  daughter  in  marriage  to  a  little  personage  of  title, 
and  that  was  fatal  to  his  general  influence.  Max  Miiller, 
Sir  William  Hunter,  and  others  found  excuses  for  him, 
but  his  congregation  in  Calcutta  diminished,  and  it  is 
probable  that  the  severe  judgments  of  Hindu  reformers 
unbalanced  his  mind  and  led  to  that  ascetic  fasting  under 
which,  as  I  have  already  stated,  his  large  frame  suc- 
cumbed. I  contributed  something  for  his  monument  at 
Calcutta  because  Sir  William  Hunter  thought  it  would 
produce  a  good  general  effect  there,  and  also  because  the 
Brahmo  movement  was  in  its  origin  connected  with  my 
London  chapel. 

But  with  none  but  kind  feelings  towards  Keshub  Chun- 
der  Sen  personally  I  had  some  fears  about  the  effect  on 
young  Hindus  of  seeing  a  monument  erected  chiefly  by 
influential  Englishmen  to  the  leader  of  a  sect,  —  and  that 
sect  strictly  fenced  off  by  creed  and  usages  from  the 
unorganized  fraternity  of  scholars  in  India  reared  in 
different  religions.  I  dreaded,  too,  the  puritanical  leaven. 
Mozoomdar  spoke  of  the  theatres  with  the  horror  that 
our  old  Methodists  had  made  me  familiar  with,  and  said 
the  Hindu  actresses  were  bad  characters.  This  I  knew  to 
be  mere  prejudice  against  institutions  in  Calcutta  which 
were  doing  much  for  civilization  and  happiness. 

Similar  feelings  exist  even  among  many  theists  in  Eng- 
land. I  once  gave  a  Sunday  lecture  at  St.  George's  Hall, 
London,  surrounded  by  a  scenic  landscape  remaining  from 
some  play  given  there  during  the  previous  week,  and  Miss 
Frances  Power  Cobbe  wrote  me  that  though  she  was  pre- 


BHAKTI  335 

sent  she  could  not  enjoy  it  because  of  her  distress  at  seeing 
anything  suggestive  of  a  theatre. 

Some  English  writer  complained  of  Renan  that  he  not 
only  made  Jesus  a  man,  but  a  Frenchman  !  The  criticism, 
however,  was  inspired  by  the  fact  that  in  Great  Britain 
Jesus  has  been  made  a  Puritan  Englishman.  Kenan's 
"Life  of  Jesus,"  whatever  its  faults,  revealed  in  Jesus 
wit  and  humour,  impulsiveness,  enthusiasm  of  humanity, 
poetic  genius,  appreciation  of  feminine  beauty.  Are  these 
exclusively  French  ? 

In  truth,  that  ancient  antagonism  between  the  hard 
ascetic  sacrificial  spirit  and  the  genial  human  and  gentle- 
manly spirit,  which  so  long  made  the  conflict  between  the 
Jahvist  and  the  Solomonic  schools  of  Jerusalem,  keeps 
them  fighting  their  eternal  duel  in  Europe  arid  America, 
and  gradually  extending  their  war  over  the  world. 

The  modern  enthusiasm  for  Buddha,  despite  his  atheism, 
is  because  of  his  supposed  moral  asceticism  and  puritan- 
ism.  It  is  accompanied  by  a  sort  of  rage  against  Krishna 
because  of  his  supposed  Solomonic  disregard  of  conven- 
tionalities, his  mythical  sixteen  hundred  wives,  his  flute, 
and  the  unpardonable  similarity  of  his  birth-legend  with 
that  of  Jesus. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  later  efforts  to  give  mystical 
interpretation  to  the  youthful  pranks  of  Krishna,  after  his 
deification,  developed  a  religion  of  Bhakti  (Faith)  which 
must  be  morally  dangerous.  Professor  Wilson,  a  great 
orientalist,  states  that  in  the  Puranas  the  doctrine  of  Faith 
renders  Conduct  wholly  immaterial. 

It  matters  not  how  atrocious  a  sinner  a  man  may  be, 
if  he  paints  his  face,  his  breast,  his  arms,  with  certain 
sectarial  marks,  or,  which  is  better,  if  he  brands  his  skin 
permanently  with  them  with  a  hot  iron  stamp ;  if  he  is 


336  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

constantly  chanting  hymns  in  honor  of  Vishnu  ;  or,  what  is 
equally  efficacious,  if  he  spends  hours  in  the  simple  reit- 
eration of  his  name  or  names ;  if  he  die  with  the  word 
ffari  or  Rama  or  Krishna  on  his  lips,  and  the  thought 
of  him  in  his  mind,  he  may  have  lived  a  monster  of  ini- 
quity, —  he  is  certain  of  heaven. 

Wilson  thought  that  in  this  particular  of  the  vital  im- 
portance of  faith  the  Vishnu-Krishna  worship  was  "  indi- 
rectly "  influenced  by  the  diffusion  of  Christianity.  John 
M.  Robertson,  M.  P.,  commenting  on  the  paragraph  just 
quoted  from  Wilson,  says,  "  It  cannot  be  denied  that  all 
this  bears  a  very  close  resemblance  to  the  practical  appli- 
cations of  the  Christian  doctrine  of  faith  in  European 
history,  and  that  that  is  of  all  Christian  doctrines  the  one 
which  may  with  most  plausibility  be  held  to  have  origi- 
nated, in  Europe,  with  the  New  Testament."  l  Robertson, 
however,  finds  the  doctrine  implicitly  given  in  the  Bha- 
gavat  Gita,  which  he  regards  as  too  early  to  have  been 
influenced  by  Christianity.  The  date  of  that  work  is 
variously  placed  between  the  second  century  before,  and 
the  second  after,  our  era.  It  is  doubtful  whether  the  doc- 
trine of  salvation  by  faith  could  have  been  carried  from 
Palestine  to  India  without  connecting  with  it  the  doc- 
trine of  vicarious  martyrdom.  There  is  no  suggestion  of 
that  kind  in  the  life  or  death  of  Krishna.  Indeed,  one  may 
almost  suspect  a  repudiation  of  that  doctrine  in  the  com- 
monplace deaths  of  Krishna  and  Buddha  —  the  former  by 
an  accidental  wound  in  the  heel,  the  latter  from  an  illness 
brought  on  by  eating  pork. 

In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  Chaitanya, 
recognized  by  Keshub  Chunder  Sen  as  "  the  Prophet  of 
Nuddea,"  revived  Vishnuism,  and  has  had  worshippers 

1  Christ  and  Krishna,  p.  117. 


VISHNU-KRISHNA  SECTS  337 

even  to  this  day  who  believe  him  to  have  been  an  incar- 
nation of  Vishnu.  It  was  he  who  gave  exaltation  to  the 
divine  name,  by  the  utterance  of  which  he  is  said  to  have 
worked  miracles.  His  followers  discard  all  luxuries,  touch 
not  meat  or  wine,  live  on  the  bare  necessaries  of  life,  dis- 
regard caste,  and  consider  mendicancy  for  the  purpose  of 
entire  self-dedication  to  God  honourable.  After  his  death 
(1527)  a  sect  arose  among  his  followers  who  asserted  the 
spiritual  independence  of  women.  They  seem  to  be  not 
very  different  from  our  American  Shakers.  "  In  their  mo- 
nastic enclosures,"  says  Sir  William  Hunter,  "  male  and 
female  cenobites  live  in  celibacy,  —  the  women  shaving 
their  heads,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  lock  of  hair.  The 
two  sexes  chant  together  the  praises  of  Vishnu  and  Chai- 
tanya  in  hymn  and  solemn  dance.  But  the  really  impor- 
tant doctrine  of  the  sect  is  their  recognition  of  the  value 
of  women  as  instructors  of  the  outside  female  community. 
For  long  they  were  the  only  teachers  admitted  into  the 
zenanas  of  good  families  in  Bengal.  Fifty  years  ago, 
they  had  effected  a  change  for  the  better  in  the  state  of 
female  education ;  and  the  value  of  such  instruction  was 
assigned  as  the  cause  of  the  sect  having  spread  in  Calcutta." 
Out  of  these  movements  arose  in  the  same  century  the 
rather  aristocratic  Krishnaism  of  which  Vallabha-Swami 
was  the  apostle.  "The  special  object  of  his  homage,"  says 
Sir  William  Hunter,  "  was  Vishnu  in  his  pastoral  incar- 
nation, in  which  he  took  the  form  of  the  divine  youth 
Krishna,  and  led  an  Arcadian  life  in  the  forest.  Shady 
bowers,  lovely  women,  exquisite  viands,  and  everything 
that  appeals  to  the  luscious  sensuousness  of  a  tropical 
race  are  mingled  in  his  worship.  His  daily  ritual  con- 
sists of  eight  services,  in  which  Krishna's  image,  as  a 
beautiful  boy,  is  delicately  bathed,  anointed  with  essences, 


338  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

splendidly  attired,  and  sumptuously  fed."  "  This  sect  per- 
forms its  devotions  arrayed  in  costly  apparel,  anointed 
with  oil,  and  perfumed  with  camphor  or  sandal-wood.  It 
seeks  its  converts  not  among  weavers,  or  leather-dressers, 
or  barbers,  but  among  wealthy  bankers  and  merchants, 
who  look  upon  life  as  a  thing  to  be  enjoyed,  and  upon 
pilgrimage  as  a  holiday  excursion,  or  an  opportunity  for 
trade." 

Keshub  Chunder  Sen  spoke  to  me  a  good  deal  when  he 
was  in  London  of  the  ill-treatment  of  the  Hindus  by  the 
average  unofficial  English  business  men  resident  in  India. 
He  gave  me  instances  in  which  some  of  them  were  struck 
and  many  insulted.  In  my  journeyings  between  Calcutta 
and  Bombay,  in  first-class  carriages,  I  was  constantly 
thrown  with  such  residents,  and  the  burden  of  their  talk 
was  angry  abuse  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Ilbert  for  his  proposal  to 
combine  native  with  white  jurymen  in  trials  where  per- 
sons of  both  races  were  equally  involved.  Their  tone  was 
much  the  same  as  that  with  which  some  of  the  Southern- 
ers in  America  denounce  the  provisions  for  negro  equality. 

What  I  have  said  about  inappreciation  of  the  great 
advantages  of  English  rule  to  India  is  quite  consistent 
with  possible  disadvantages  to  the  British  colonists.  It  is 
hardly  possible  for  a  white  race  to  dwell  with  a  race  of  col- 
oured subjects  without  deterioration.  I  remember  hearing 
an  ethnographical  lecture  by  Professor  Huxley,  in  which, 
while  pointing  out  on  a  map  the  smallness  of  Great 
Britain  in  contrast  with  India,  he  said  casually,  "That 
this  small  island  should  rule  that  vast  country,  with  many 
times  its  population,  is  the  most  striking  instance  I  know 
of  the  power  of  mind  over  matter."  It  was  the  only  time 
I  ever  heard  Huxley  speak  with  the  slightest  jingoist 
accent,  and  I  doubted  that  the  ruler  was  not  altogether 


ENGLISH  RULE  IN  INDIA  339 

"  mind  "  nor  the  ruled  "  matter."  I  found  in  India  that 
the  peaceful  rule  of  England  there  was  indeed  due  to  the 
good  sense  of  England  in  sending  out  many  eminent 
scholars  and  men  of  science  to  fill  the  chief  offices,  and 
comparatively  few  military  men  and  soldiers.  The  young 
men  passing  through  English  universities  revered  Huxley 
and  the  scientific  men  and  the  scholars  sent  out  of  them, 
and  yet  the  Hindus  generally  did  not  love  the  English 
among  them,  nor  their  government.  There  were  heredi- 
tary traditions  of  wrongs  and  cruelties  transmitted  from 
the  ages  before  such  scholars  as  Max  Miiller  and  others 
had  awakened  the  western  world  to  the  splendours  of 
oriental  literature.1 

In  India  I  steadily  realized  not  only  that  the  true  reli- 
gion was  that  of  Zoroaster,  but  that  fundamentally  the  only 
practicable  religion  is  the  struggle  of  Good  against  Evil. 
That  is  what  everybody  is  necessarily  doing.  Why  then  do 
I  feel  disappointed  about  these  masses  of  the  ignorant  in 

1  "  Blessed  are  the  lowly,  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth."  Sublime  para- 
dox, which  young  ambition  may  despise  but  gray  experience  knows  true  ! 
The  conquerors  of  the  earth  do  not  really  possess  the  earth  ;  it  possesses 
them.  Gibbon  smiles  at  Livy,  who,  he  says,  tries  to  persuade  us  that  Home 
conquered  the  world  in  self-defence.  But  such  are  the  conditions.  When- 
ever a  nation  makes  a  conquest,  it  must  live  up  to  it  or  down  to  it ;  must 
surround  every  subjugated  country  with  a  Monroe  doctrine,  ever  expanding 
till  it  involves  hostility  to  the  whole  world  and  loss  of  all  that  free-will, 
which  alone  can  really  inherit  the  earth,  and  enjoy  it.  Daniel  Webster's 
rhetoric  was  splendid  when  in  the  Senate  he  spoke  of  Great  Britain  as 
that  "  Power  whose  morning  drum-beat,  travelling  with  the  sun  and  keep- 
ing time  with  the  stars,  encircles  the  earth  with  one  continuous  strain  of 
the  martial  airs  of  England."  But  what  has  it  profited  England  to  encircle 
the  whole  world  and  lose  its  real  soul,  its  freedom,  so  that  it  has  had  to 
fight  nearly  every  race,  —  Hindu,  Russian,  American,  French,  Chinese, 
Spanish,  Egyptian,  Kaffir,  Boer,  Tibetan,  —  in  self-defence ;  every  war 
being  one  for  which  England  now  hangs  its  head  for  shame.  —  From  my 
oration  at  Dickinson  College,  June  6,  1905. 


340  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

India  ?  I  suppose  that  unconsciously  I  expected  to  see  the 
great  epics  reflected  in  their  religious  festivals  instead  of 
sacrificial  superstitions.  But  after  all,  were  not  these  poor 
people  struggling  against  Evil,  —  disease,  hunger,  death, 
—  in  the  only  way  they  could  ?  They  are  not  physicians,  nor 
learned,  nor  wealthy,  nor  even  voters ;  are  they  then  to 
give  up  even  the  feeling  that  their  humble  altar  offerings 
and  prayers  may  be  doing  some  little  to  help  the  good 
side  ?  And  when  I  hesitate  about  this,  and  fear  that  when 
Evils  are  resisted  as  persons  —  Satans,  Ahrimans  —  the 
resistance  is  ineffectual,  because  unscientific,  the  over- 
whelming sense  of  Fate  confounds  me.  A  population  of 
300,000,000  whose  most  imperative  religious  duty  is  to 
multiply,  must  inevitably  act  inorganically.  It  cannot  have 
the  free  thought  or  free  agency  of  an  individual. 

Those  little  boys  I  saw  in  the  Calcutta  Exposition  weav- 
ing with  shuttles  obedient  to  a  tune  sung  to  them  —  each 
note  signifying  a  thread  colour  —  were  only  the  more  com- 
plex cerebral  part  of  the  loom.  What,  then,  is  this  vast 
automatic  loom  called  India,  —  what  is  it  weaving  ? 

English  threads.  Even  the  missionaries,  who  dread  the 
Darwinians  and  sceptics  at  home,  are  cooperating  with 
them  in  India.  For  the  logic  with  which  they  expose  the 
Hindu  "  idols "  is  a  boomerang  recoiling  on  their  own 
Christian  idols,  and  the  result  is  that  the  Indian  mind  is 
steadily  becoming  irreligious.  And  it  is  the  new  song  of 
the  mind  educated  by  England  which  spins  and  increas- 
ingly directs  the  children  with  their  shuttles.  But  the 
children  will  go  on  with  their  old  happy  festivals  until 
English  wealth  and  knowledge  give  them  happier  ones. 

While  I  was  working  at  my  own  little  loom,  and  weav- 
ing an  ideal  India  with  Zendavestan  threads,  a  fine 
scholar  in  London,  Samuel  Laing,  M.  P.,  who  had  made 


SAMUEL  LAING 


SAMUEL  LAING  341 

his  pilgrimage  in  India  long  before,  was  developing  a  like 
conclusion.  I  cannot  leave  Bombay  without  inserting 
here  some  tribute  to  that  admirable  man  and  author, 
whom  I  used  to  meet  in  the  house  of  my  dear  friends  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Charles  C.  Macrae  (she  was  his  daughter),  and 
with  what  delight  I  found  on  my  return  to  England  that 
a  scientific  Zoroaster  had  appeared  in  him.  In  his  mar- 
vellous work,  "A  Modern  Zoroastrian"  (the  most  impor- 
ant  religious  volume  written  in  my  time),  he  maintains 
that  Christianity  has  become  practically  Zoroastrian,  with 
Christ  for  their  Ormuzd.  His  grand  work  —  long  out  of 
print,  I  fear,  —  rises  finally  into  song:  — 

Hail !  gracious  Orinuzd,  author  of  all  good, 

Spirit  of  beauty,  purity,  and  light ; 

Teach  me  like  thee  to  hate  dark  deeds  of  night, 

And  battle  ever  with  the  hellish  brood 

Of  Ahriman,  dread  prince  of  evil  mood  — 

Father  of  lies,  uncleanness,  envious  spite, 

Thefts,  murders,  sensual  sins  that  shun  the  light, 

Unreason,  ugliness,  and  fancies  lewd  — 

Grant  me,  bright  Orinuzd,  in  thy  ranks  to  stand, 

A  valiant  soldier  faithful  to  the  end  ; 

So  when  I  leave  this  life's  familiar  strand, 

Bound  for  the  great  Unknown,  shall  I  commend 

My  soul,  if  soul  survive,  into  thy  hand  — 

Fearless  of  fate  if  thou  thine  aid  will  lend. 

The  ideal  temple  in  Bombay  is  the  Jain.  I  was  told 
that  there  are  only  half  a  million  Jains  in  India,  but 
they  are  wealthy  and  educated,  and  erect  their  beautiful 
temples  —  which  all  may  freely  enter  —  each  in  the  cen- 
tre of  a  flower  garden.  The  "  images  "  are  works  of  art. 
The  statue  resembling  Buddha  is  not  reclining  nor  slum- 
bering in  any  Nirvana,  but  upright  and  open-eyed.  There 
is  fair  Padmava,  "  Lady  of  the  Lily,"  and  her  husband 


342  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

Parsanatha  —  both  purely  human.  On  a  glass  door  stained 
with  pictures  were  side  by  side  Yasoda  nursing  Krishna 
and  Mary  nursing  Jesus.  Without  priesthood,  without 
sacrifices,  the  Jain's  daily  worship  is  to  gather  flowers 
from  the  temple-garden,  or  from  his  own,  and  strew 
them  before  those  forms  —  man  and  woman  —  saying : 
"  Salutation  to  the  saints,  to  the  pure  beings,  to  the 
sages,  to  the  devout  in  all  the  world !  " 


CHAPTER  XVI 

Homeward  —  The  Flying  Dutchman  —  Oar  '  Lady  of  the  Peking  '  —  A 
letter  of  John  Bright —  "  Chinese  Gordon  "  in  the  Soudan  and  in  Palestine 
—  Pilgrimage  to  the  Krupp  Gun  Works  at  Essen,  Germany  —  Address 
at  Dickinson  College,  Pennsylvania. 

AND  now  Homeward ! 
Every  week  the  "  Bombay  Times  "  prints  a  list 
of  the  deaths  there,  and  usually  several  caused  by  cholera. 
These  are  generally  ill-fed  and  poorly  housed  natives, 
and  the  list  causes  no  alarm.  But  while  I  was  there  an 
English  gentleman  died  of  cholera,  and  this  was  so  unlike 
the  snobbish  character  of  Death  that  the  event  was  tele- 
graphed to  Europe,  and  after  we  left  Aden  none  on  our 
homeward  bound  ship  was  permitted  to  land  in  Egypt. 
Even  the  mails  were  not  admitted,  and  an  urgent  dispatch 
was  sent  to  the  canal  bank  in  a  bottle.  My  hope  of  pass- 
ing a  week  in  Palestine  was  thus  defeated. 

The  most  interesting  acquaintance  I  made  on  the  voy- 
age was  a  Zanzibar  workman,  —  the  blackest  man  I  ever 
saw  and  one  of  the  most  finely  formed.  He  generally 
stripped  to  the  waist  for  his  work,  and  his  head,  profile, 
features  were  as  refined  and  beautiful  as  his  bust.  He 
spoke  English,  and  I  used  to  go  to  the  fore  part  of  the 
ship  before  sunrise  to  talk  with  him  when  he  was  not 
much  occupied.  From  him  I  learned  some  of  the  Zanzi- 
bar folk-lore.  One  morning  he  told  me  that  if  I  had  only 
risen  a  little  sooner  I  might  have  seen  the  Flying  Dutch- 
man. He  had  seen  its  dark  sail  on  the  horizon,  but  it 
never  remains  visible  for  more  than  a  few  moments.  So 


344  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

long  lasts  the  Promethean  legend  of  Captain  Bernard 
Fokke,  who  defied  the  Creator  by  plating  his  ship  with 
sheet-iron,  which  instead  of  thereby  sinking  was  the  swift- 
est ship  afloat.  Indeed  to  this  day  steam  and  solid  iron 
ships  cannot  overtake  the  heaven-defying  craft  which 
must  speed  without  reaching  any  port  till  Judgment  Day ! 

Between  Aden  and  Venice  there  was  in  our  fairly  large 
company  only  one  woman, —  Mrs.  Fraser  of  Melbourne. 
There  was  not  even  a  female  servant  on  the  Peking.  The 
attractive  and  literary  young  lady  had  the  wit  to  appreciate 
the  humorous  aspects  of  the  situation, — one  of  these  being 
the  fact  that  she  had  recently  obtained  a  divorce.  She 
was  familiar  with  the  works  of  W.  D.  Howells  and  needed 
no  explanation  of  my  allusion  to  "The  Lady  of  the 
Aroostook."  Had  Howells  been  along  he  might  have  writ- 
ten a  variant  of  the  story  in  which  the  lady  instead  of 
being  taken  under  chivalrous  protection  of  some  youths 
would  extend  a  sort  of  protection  to  the  desolate  bachelors 
who  for  more  than  a  week  could  see  no  feminine  face  but 
hers.  No  queen  in  history  ever  reigned  over  her  realm  so 
modestly,  gracefully,  and  graciously  as  this  fair  young 
dame  over  her  floating  empire.  We  were  quarantined  in 
the  gulf  of  Venice  four  days  —  ninety-eight  hours,  —  and 
so  rigidly  that  when  the  captain  opened  the  pigeon-house 
to  let  the  birds  enjoy  the  air,  officers  came  out  near 
enough  to  command  that  they  should  be  housed,  lest  one 
should  travel  to  Venice  (miles  away)  and  carry  the  chol- 
era! 

In  Venice,  Carnival  was  beginning,  and  the  street 
scenes  vividly  reminded  me  of  George  Eliot's  descriptions 
in  "Romola."  When  I  reached  Paris  the  Mardi-gras 
mirth  and  grotesquerie  were  in  full  glory.  On  Wednes- 
day (March  13, 1884)  I  was  at  my  home  in  Bedford  Park. 


"CHINESE   GORDON"  345 

On  my  return  to  England  I  found  the  nation  pro- 
foundly moved  by  the  death  of  General  Gordon  in  the 
Soudan.  The  mingled  grief  and  rage  was  something  like 
that  which  filled  New  England  when  John  Brown  was 
executed  in  Virginia,  but  as  Gordon  was  slain  in  fair 
combat  while  invading  a  foreign  country  there  was  none 
to  rage  against  except  the  government.  The  Prime  Min- 
ister (Gladstone)  had  to  defend  himself  as  well  as  he 
could  in  a  case  where  the  attack  was  animated  solely  by  a 
recrudescence  of  the  crusading  spirit.  "  Chinese  Gordon," 
as  he  has  been  called,  was  now  spoken  of  by  the  national 
clergy  as  "  Our  Christian  Soldier."  The  wrath  of  the 
clerical  aristocracy,  reinforced  by  that  of  the  Queen  her- 
self, seemed  about  to  flood  the  Soudan  with  a  deluge  of 
blood,  and  the  one  great  voice  which  in  every  such  crisis 
had  pleaded  for  peace  —  that  of  John  Bright  —  was  silent. 
After  a  good  deal  of  consultation  with  his  influential 
friends,  1  resolved  to  write  to  John  Bright.  My  twenty 
years  of  friendship  with  him  was  a  sufficient  warrant  for 
doing  so,  and  in  addition  I  had  been  engaged  by  some 
of  his  admirers  in  America  to  convey  to  him  an  invi- 
tation to  visit  our  country.  So  the  letter  was  written  and 
the  following  answer  returned :  — 

ONE  ASH,  ROCHDALE,  April  9,  '85. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  CON  WAY,  —  I  am  very  sensible  of  the 
kindness  of  your  letter.  It  is  not  likely  that  I  shall  visit 
your  country  —  I  am  too  far  on  in  life  for  such  an  adven- 
ture. 

As  to  the  main  purport  of  your  letter  I  could  write 
much,  but  shall  only  write  little.  I  left  the  Government 
nearly  three  years  ago,  giving  up  what  men  prize  greatly, 
and  separating  myself  from  Mr.  Gladstone,  with  whom 
I  had  acted  for  many  years.  This  was  my  protest 
against  the  bombardment  of  Alexandria.  I  retired  from 


346  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

the  Government,  and  abstained  from  any  further  open 
condemnation  of  my  late  colleagues.  The  outrage  at 
Alexandria  has  been  followed  by  other  blunders  and 
other  crimes.  I  have  looked  on  with  grief  and  shame  — 
but  in  public  I  have  said  nothing  or  almost  nothing. 

When  war  is  on  there  is  little  use  in  protesting  or  con- 
demning —  I  discovered  that  thirty  years  ago,  during 
the  Crimean  war.  If  I  could  have  done  anything,  it  could 
only  have  been  done  by  the  overthrow  of  the  Government 

—  and  their  successors  must  have  been  those  whose  policy 
was  and  is  worse  than  that  of  those  they  followed  —  a 
policy  which,  if  insisted  upon,  would  probably  have  in- 
volved a  war  with  France.    Viewing  all  the  circumstances 
of  the  case,  I  have  thought  it  was  right  for  me  to  be  silent. 
My  position  in  regard  to  this  unhappy  business  is  peculiar, 
and  I  must  follow  such  light  as  I  have.   I  could  not  speak 
upon  it  without  the  use  of  language  such  as  I  am  not 
willing  to  utter  when  dealing  with  the  mistakes  of  my 
late  colleagues,  and  of    my  personal  friends.   My   lan- 
guage and  purpose  would  be  misunderstood,  and  wrong 
motives  be  attributed  to  me.    One  member  of  the  Govern- 
ment is  my  colleague  in  the  representation  of  Birming- 
ham ;  it  would  be  painful  for  me  to  discuss  the  question 
before   our  Constituency,  and   I  have  spoken  on  other 
topics  —  partly  on  Foreign  policy,  but  without  direct  re- 
ference to  the  Egyptian  muddle. 

You  speak  of  the  good  people  you  know  who  ask  why 
I  am  silent.  I  cannot  now  give  them  an  answer  —  if  they 
could  trust  me  in  so  great  a  question,  perhaps  they  will 
trust  me  even  though  I  am  silent  when  they  would  expect 
me  to  speak.  If  I  have  any  influence  with  the  Govern- 
ment it  has  not  been  withheld,  but  I  have  not  appeared 
in  public  as  their  accuser.  I  believe,  looking  to  the  home 
interests  of  the  Country,  and  to  its  foreign  interests  also 
I  have  done  what  was  my  duty  in  this  difficult  case.  We 
want  a  thorough  change  in  our  notions  of  foreign  policy 

—  when  it  will  come  I  know  not.    Perhaps  some  great  ca- 
tastrophe is  approaching.    I  sometimes  suspect  it.   Earth- 
quakes come  without  noise  of  footstep.    Europe  is  nearly 
ready  for  one,  and  its  nations,  we  amongst  them,  may 
need  a  lesson. 


[Letter  from  John  Bright} 


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GORDON'S  MISSION  347 

Forgive  this  unsatisfactory  reply  to  your  very  friendly 
letter.    I  feel  sure  you  will  not  misunderstand  me. 
I  am, 

Very  respectfully  yours, 
JOHN  BRIGHT. 

Meanwhile  from  the  Foreign  Office,  and  from  Gordon's 
friend,  W.  H.  Mallock,  and  from  Gordon  Hake,  his  rela- 
tive, the  facts  and  documents  concerning  Gordon  and 
his  mission  flooded  the  papers  and  reviews,  revealing  the 
strangest  character  and  wildest  conduct  known  to  modern 
history. 

Gordon  seemed  to  have  passed  much  time  in  devout 
saunterings  in  the  "  Holy  Land,"  discovering  sacred  local- 
ities. For  instance,  a  hill  near  the  Mount  of  Olives  ap- 
pearing something  like  a  human  form,  its  skull-like  knoll 
reveals  the  exact  spot  of  the  Crucifixion.  Gordon  had 
made  friends  with  the  Soudanese  and  repeatedly  declared 
Egyptian  rule  there  to  be  "the  curse  of  the  country." 
As  he  also  knew  their  language,  he  appeared  the  best  man 
to  send  on  a  mission,  —  not  military,  but  for  persuasion 
and  negotiation,  —  to  secure  release  of  the  Egyptians  held 
by  the  Mahdi. 

Gordon  accepted  the  mission  and  the  instructions  with 
perfect  agreement,  but  when  he  arrived  in  Egypt  the 
Khedive  held  up  before  him  a  divine  mission,  and  Jahvist 
instructions.  He  was  to  command  the  hosts  of  the  Egyp- 
tians, subdue  the  false  Messiah  (Mahdi)  and  prepare  the 
way  of  the  True  Messiah.  Gordon's  diary  contains  entries 
that  one  might  expect  in  a  diary  of  Peter  the  Hermit.  "I 
take  this  prophecy  as  my  own"  (Isa.  xix) :  "  And  it 
shall  be  for  a  sign  and  for  a  witness  unto  the  Lord  of 
hosts  in  the  land  of  Egypt."  When  the  Mahdi  has  sent 
him  a  warning,  Gordon  writes  the  word  and  interrogation 


348  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

"Armageddon?"  One  need  only  read  the  passage  in 
Revelation  xv,  12-16,  to  realize  the  fatal  fanaticism  of 
that  word  "  Armageddon"  in  such  a  crisis.  It  was  Mahdi 
meeting  Mahdi.  But  these  revelations  seemed  only  to  in- 
crease English  enthusiasm  for  "  Our  Christian  Soldier," 
and  I  reached  the  conclusion  that  if  one  scratches  an  Eng- 
lishman with  a  Moslem  spear  he  will  find  a  crusader. 

About  this  time  I  was  requested  by  my  friend  the  late 
Joseph  Harper  to  visit  Essen,  and  write  for  "  Harper's 
Magazine  "  an  account  of  the  Krupp  works.  It  was  a  rather 
droll  commission  for  a  Peace  man  like  myself,  but  it  was 
not  inappropriate  except  by  reason  of  my  deficiency  in  the 
science  of  guns.  I  find  that  at  that  time  I  was  still  under 
the  dominion  of  the  belief  in  some  universal  law  of  pro- 
gress. That  implies  of  course  that  the  work  of  destruc- 
tion has  its  legitimate  moral  place.  In  India,  whose  most 
popular  deity  is  Siva  the  Destroyer,  I  journeyed  for  many 
weeks  amid  peaceful  homes  and  villages,  charmed  by  the 
fact  that  over  those  innumerable  people  no  cloud  of  war 
appeared.  And  now  my  first  pilgrimage  was  to  the  land 
of  European  Siva,  well  represented  by  Von  Moltke,  this 
most  accomplished  commander  of  Europe,  whom  I  had 
seen  at  the  head  of  his  armies  in  France,  and  who  had 
just  answered  a  Peace  Association :  "  Your  dream  is  not 
merely  unpractical,  it  is  not  even  beautiful."  At  that 
time  I  was  nai've  enough  to  believe  that  war  had  crushed 
slavery  in  America  and  Caesarism  in  France. 

So  at  Essen,  with  sixteen  thousand  people  dwelling  in 
an  ideal  town  created  by  the  Works,  I  saw  the  huge 
guns  as  the  glittering  vertebrae  of  monster  saurians  pre- 
paring the  way  for  a  human  development  attainable  only 
through  their  extinction.  They  are,  I  thought,  rude  pio- 
neers of  a  civilization  whose  peaceful  abodes  shall  be  paved 


THE  KRUPP  GUN  WORKS  349 

with  their  fossil  bones.  As  I  write  now,  long  after  these 
illusive  rainbows  have  vanished,  I  may  report  my  pilgrim- 
age to  the  Krupp  Works  as  visible  through  the  vista  of 
my  later  pilgrimage  in  time.  This  may  be  done  by  the 
following  extract  from  an  address  given  at  Dickinson 
College  (Carlisle,  Pa.)  :  - 

Hence  that  dread  doubleness  of  nations,  each  sending 
out  sweet  waters  and  bitter.  Thirty-five  years  ago  my 
duties  as  a  journalist  carried  me  to  battlefields  of  France, 
where  men  were  mowed  down  like  grass  and  villages 
burned  and  desolated.  Some  time  after,  like  duties 
carried  me  to  the  town  of  Essen,  in  Germany,  seat  of  the 
Krupp  Works,  the  largest  forge  of  arms  in  the  world. 
There  I  saw  two  kinds  of  perfection.  One  was  the  town  of 
the  Krupp  workpeople.  Socialistic  reformers,  —  Babeuf , 
Fourier,  St.  Simon,  Robert  Owen,  —  have  for  more  than 
a  century  been  trying  in  vain  to  build  ideal  communities, 
and  such  have  been  successfully  built  only  in  romances. 
But  where  social  enthusiasts  have  failed  the  Krupp  Gun 
Works  have  succeeded.  Exploring  those  beautiful  habita- 
tions with  happy  wives  and  children,  the  library,  read- 
ing-room, school,  baths,  church,  gymnasium,  playground, 
hospital,  I  walked  through  a  veritable  Utopia,  —  all  the 
visionary  romances  become  real.  Then  I  saw  the  other 
perfection,  —  the  exquisite  evolution  by  which  the  iron  ore 
passed  from  furnace  to  furnace,  forge  to  forge,  —  announ- 
cing to  the  scientific  refiner  by  tints  of  flame,  red,  yellow, 
blue,  when  it  was  ready  to  advance  another  stage  towards 
that  purity  of  heart  when  it  becomes  Bessemer  steel,  and 
then  attain  total  sanctification  as  a  gun  able  to  carry  a 
shell  for  miles.  They  entrusted  me  to  a  scientific  manager 
who  knew  English,  and  revealed  certain  things  I  was  not 
to  print,  —  secrets  of  state.  He  showed  me  a  transcendent 
gun,  —  a  beauty.  This  dainty  creature  was  surrounded  by 
artistic  shells,  as  Venus  might  be  by  Cupids,  each  shell 
with  a  face  or  dial,  on  which  a  hand  is  turned  to  a  figure. 
The  shell  flies,  and  at  the  exact  second  pointed  to  by  the 
dial  hand  infallibly  explodes.  When  I  saw  the  array  of 
these  perfect  guns,  with  their  families  of  shells  nestling 


350  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

around  them,  and  the  workmen's  pretty  and  well-dressed 
children  playing  around,  the  touching  scene  recalled  the 
early  western  epitaph  of  "Jeames  Hambrick,  who  was 
shot  with  a  revolver,  one  of  the  old-fashioned  kind,  brass- 
mounted,  and  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  Heaven." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

SEEKING  THE  BELOVED 

FROM  the  deck  of  our  quarantined  ship  in  the  waters 
of  Egypt,  gazing  towards  the  consecrated  land  I  was 
forbidden  to  enter,  I  asked  myself  the  reason  of  my  keen 
disappointment.  Was  it  a  real  sentiment  about  the 
"  blessed  acres  "  which  the  feet  of  Jesus  had  trod,  or  was 
it  curiosity,  that  caused  my  longing  ?  Something  of  both 
perhaps,  but  one  thing  seemed  certain,  —  my  pilgrimage 
to  the  Wise  Men  of  the  East  could  not  be  continued  in 
Palestine.  What  Wise  Men  were  there  ? 

But  what  I  had  seen  and  learned  in  Asia  inspired  me 
with  a  feeling  that  I  had  not  yet  come  close  enough  for 
personal  recognition  to  the  wise  man  to  whom  Chris- 
tendom was  crying  Lord,  Lord,  while  doing  the  reverse 
of  what  he  said.  I  had  known  him  as  the  crucified,  had 
recognized  him  in  the  oppressed  slave,  and  in  many  a 
suffering  Cause,  but  my  occasional  tentative  essays  about 
the  individual  Jesus  —  the  flesh-and-blood  man  —  still 
left  him  a  sort  of  figure-head.  There  remained  then  a  pil- 
grimage of  exploration  to  be  made,  and  I  settled  myself 
down  to  make  it  on  shipboard  during  our  week  (nearly) 
of  quarantine.  But  that  exploration  has  continued  to  the 
day  when  this  volume  goes  to  press,  and  from  notes  writ- 
ten from  time  to  time  during  twenty  years  are  selected 
those  contained  in  this  final  chapter.  It  is  in  my  own 
mind  some  justification  of  its  inclusion  here  that  it  partly 
grew  out  of  my  oriental  pilgrimage. 


352  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

In  the  tale  from  the  Arabic  Gospel  with  which  I  set 
out  (Prolegomena),  the  Zoroastrian  pilgrims  who  had  fol- 
lowed a  star  till  it  took  human  shape,  then  led  them  back 
to  their  own  country,  were  asked  by  the  princes  what 
they  had  brought  back.  They  displayed  a  child's  swad- 
dling-band  given  them  by  its  mother,  and  which  their 
sacred  fire  could  not  consume.  This  they  pressed  to  their 
lips  and  to  their  eyes.  My  own  princes — my  learned  mas- 
ters —  will  find  that  in  the  preceding  pages  I  have  brought 
back  little  that  is  new,  unless  errors  about  names  and 
Hindu  philosophies.  But  I  have  brought  back  a  swad- 
dling-band  too!  Yosada  used  it  for  the  infant  Krishna, 
and  Maia  for  the  babe  Buddha,  and  Bathsheba  for 
Solomon  (Wisdom  vii,  4 :  "I  was  nursed  in  swaddling 
clothes,  and  that  with  cares  ") ;  and  when,  after  pressing 
it  to  my  lips  and  eyes,  I  looked  over  towards  Palestine, 
and  saw  in  vision  Lady  Mary  and  her  babe  (as  I  had 
seen  them  in  the  Jain  temple  and  the  Positivist  temple), 
the  swaddling-band  revealed  itself  as  a  symbol  of  religion 
in  its  loving,  unsophisticated  infancy.  Fear  may  be  the 
mother  of  Devotion,  but  Love  is  the  mother  of  that  real 
faith  in  all  hearts  which  no  fire  —  nor  menaces  of  fire  — 
can  consume.  Amid  all  the  metaphysical  and  ceremonial 
cinders  of  oriental  religions,  and  the  fierce  demons  pla- 
cated in  temples  but  not  worshipped,  the  humble  homes 
know  only  the  tender  light  shed  from  sweet  faces  on 
their  walls, — mothers,  lovers,  wives,  children,  heroic  men, 
—  each  picture  with  its  simple  tale  or  idyl. 

From  my  swaddling-band  point  of  view  polytheism  has 
its  advantages.  "  To  worship  a  god  not  your  own  is 
mere  flattery,"  says  Confucius.  It  is  no  flattery  of  the 
god  but  of  some  devotee  of  his  who  will  hate  you  or  kill 
you  if  you  do  not  sacrifice  your  supreme  ideal  to  his  idol. 


LOVE   PERSONIFIED  353 

A  collectivist  deity  has  for  me  no  religious  meaiiing  at 
all.  "Do  you  believe  in  a  God?"  Which?  Ormuzd, 
Brahma,  Jupiter,  Jehovah,  Allah,  Trinity,  Triad,  Mumbo- 
Jumbo  ?  The  mind  may  be  "  god-fearing,"  but  the  heart 
believes  in  the  beloved ;  a  universal  "  God  "  would  be  as 
unreal  as  a  universal  sweetheart.  That  which  the  heart 
loves  it  enshrines,  and  to  me  it  is  the  loving,  unselfish, 
giving,  beautiful  side  of  nature ;  it  is  Love,  not  omnipo- 
tent, but  feminine.  Should  I  personify  it,  there  would  be 
in  my  vision  a  composite  picture  of  the  lovely  and  beloved 
faces  that  watched  over  my  infancy,  and  smiled  on  me 
through  life,  and  rendered  it  impossible  for  my  heart  to 
bow  at  any  shrine  of  Will  or  Omnipotence.  To  Power  I 
offer  no  prayer,  but  to  a  beloved  woman  I  have  often  said, 
and  said  beside  her  deathbed,  "  Forgive  me  my  sins  !  " 

"  My  mother,"  said  Jesus,  —  "  My  mother  the  Holy 
Spirit  bore  me  up  to  the  great  mountain  Tabor." 

There  is  perhaps  some  mystical  significance  in  the 
faith  that  the  perfect  man  is  born  of  woman  alone. 

In  1876  I  printed  a  collection  of  discourses  in  London, 
under  the  title,  "  Christianity,"  the  motto  beneath  being, 
Whoso  will  be  great,  let  him  serve.  The  six  sections  were 
headed :  Its  Morning  Star ;  Its  Dawn ;  Its  Day ;  Its 
Decline ;  Its  Afterglow ;  The  Morrow.  In  1877  I  ap- 
pended it  to  my  volume  entitled,  "  Idols  and  Ideals." 
There  is  nothing  in  the  essay  that  is  of  much  importance 
to  me  now  to  cancel,  but  what  I  feel  to  be  wanting  in  it 
is  the  lack  of  any  deep  personal  feeling  about  Jesus.  I 
exalt  his  character  and  teachings,  but  in  a  philosophic 
way,  as  if  carving  a  novel  figure  on  the  sepulchre  of  his 
spirit,  —  sepulchre  to  me  represented  by  the  ecclesiastical 
system  called  Christianity;  and  the  following  words  ap- 
peared to  me  then  a  sufficient  epitaph :  — 


354  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

"  Nor  will  the  Morrow  take  away  Christ.  It  will  restore 
him  to  the  World  from  which  patristic  metaphysics  have 
removed  him.  It  will  no  longer  be  considered  any  degra- 
dation to  call  him  a  man.  He  will  be  seen  as  one  of  a  high 
and  holy  fraternity  of  seers  and  teachers,  stretching 
through  all  ages,  whom  no  one  race  can  claim,  who  speak 
for  universal  right  and  reason." 

I  then  preferred  the  name  "  Christ "  to  "  Jesus,"  be- 
cause Christ  was  a  "royal  title  "  which  Jew  and  Gentile 
united  to  bestow  on  a  poor  man  whose  only  claim  to 
kingship  was  that  he  bore  witness  to  the  truth.  Before 
passing  through  Egypt  I  had  reached  a  definite  belief  that 
Jesus  was  the  real  name,  probably  given  by  his  parents  in 
homage  to  Jesus  Ben  Sira,  principal  author  of  the  brilliant 
heretical  book  entitled  "Wisdom,"  to  which  Christians 
gave  the  title  "  Ecclesiasticus."  The  name  would  thus  be 
an  indication  that  Jesus  was  brought  up  in  an  anti-jahvist 
household  and  trained  in  the  secular  wisdom  associated 
with  the  Solomonic  school ;  and  that  he  was  himself 
trained  in  boyhood  in  the  academy  of  cosmopolitan  Hillel. 
In  my  belief  Jesus  was,  as  Paul  says,  a  rich  man,  who  by 
devoting  himself  to  a  public  cause  became  sufficiently 
poor  to  accept  the  pecuniary  support  of  certain  persons  of 
rank,  —  such  as  Mary  entitled  the  Magdalene ;  Joanna, 
the  wife  of  Herod's  steward ;  Susanna,  "  and  many 
others." 

In  the  absence  of  any  mention  of  Jesus  by  any  con- 
temporary writer  I  could  reach  my  conviction  of  his  actual 
existence  only  by  a  purely  literary  investigation. 

At  the  close  of  one  day  we  were  compensated  for  our 
quarantine  imprisonment  on  Suez  Canal  by  a  sort  of  after- 
glow which  shaped  itself  into  a  mirage.  It  needed  but 
slight  help  of  imagination  to  see  lake  and  palms  on  the 


CONFRONTING  THE  SPHINX  355 

horizon,  and  perhaps  all  my  "  lost  bowers  "  of  faith  might 
have  reappeared  had  not  the  black  curtain  of  Egyptian 
night  fallen. 

My  friend  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  who  visited  me  in 
London  on  his  return  from  the  Nile,  —  about  which  he 
wrote  two  charming  books,  —  was  impressed  by  an  incident 
which  would  not  have  been  noticed  by  any  mere  traveller, 
It  made  me  recognize  in  him  a  brother  pilgrim  who  had 
come  as  far  from  the  old  Methodist  meetings  in  Madison 
County,  New  York,  as  I  had  from  those  of  Stafford  in 
Virginia.  Amid  the  solemn  monuments  of  an  immemorial 
Past,  sitting  alone  on  his  barge  far  in  the  depths  of  night, 
with  the  mysteries  of  Sphinx  and  Pyramid  and  Temple 
around  him,  he  heard  from  a  neighbouring  barge  a  flute 
sending  out  in  the  midnight  the  air  of  the  familiar  hymn,  — 

How  firm  a  foundation,  ye  saints  of  the  Lord, 
Is  laid  in  your  faith  by  his  excellent  word. 

Warner  knew  by  instinct  that  this  was  some  happy 
Yankee  confronting  the  Sphinx  with  his  solution  of  the 
enigma  of  the  universe.  There  was  a  story  that  when 
Ralph  Waldo  Emerson  first  stood  before  the  Sphinx  she 
said  to  him,  "You're  another,"  This  is  a  fair  enough 
story  to  derive  from  lines  in  Emerson's  first  poem :  — 

The  old  Sphinx  bit  her  thick  lip,  — 
Said,  "  Who  taught  thee  me  to  name? 

I  am  thy  spirit,  yoke-fellow, 
Of  thine  eye  I  am  eyebeam." 

But  this  humble  believer,  with  his  flute  and  his  "firm 
foundation,"  coming  from  the  same  region  as  the  philoso- 
pher who  floated  my  foundation  in  early  youth,  far  away 
in  Virginia,  gave  me  a  mystical  theme  to  ponder  as  I  sat 
on  the  deck,  able  to  visit  Egypt  only  in  dreams. 

I   began  then  to  turn  my  little  searchlight  upon  my 


356  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

own  consciousness.  What  remained  of  my  old  founda- 
tion? Especially  did  that  being  whom  my  early  faith  be- 
held moving  amid  the  people  over  there,  healing  their 
sick,  raising  their  dead,  and  teaching  renunciation  of  the 
world, — did  he  ever  exist  at  all?  Or  did  any  great  man 
exist  there  in  the  remote  past  who  could  have  any  value 
for  me?  I  could  croon  hymns  as  well  as  Warner's  invisible 
neighbour  with  the  flute ;  and  I  did  remember  over  there 
a  favourite  old  hymn  of  which  my  experience  had  changed 
only  a  word  or  two :  — 

Hark,  my  soul,  it  is  the  Lord ! 
"Tis  the  Spirit,  hear  her  word: 
Jesus  speaks,  he  speaks  to  thee,  — 
'  Say  poor  pilgrim,  lovest  thou  me  ? 
I  delivered  thee  when  bound, 
And  when  bleeding  healed  thy  wound, 
Sought  thee  wandering,  set  thee  right, 
Turned  thy  darkness  into  light.' 

Did  these  lines  have  more  than  pathos  for  me, — did  they 
hold  any  truth  for  me?  It  is  perfectly  true  that  in  every 
vicissitude  of  thought,  belief,  life,  that  man  had  led  me. 
It  was  he  who  when,  in  my  twentieth  year,  I  ceased  to  be- 
lieve that  he  was  Almighty  God,  led  me  gently  out  of  my 
pulpit  and  bade  me  follow  my  light.  It  was  he  who  gave 
me  strength  to  leave  father,  mother,  and  home  for  the 
sake  of  what  I  believed  the  truth,  and  gave  me  courage  to 
suffer  exile  and  face  peril  for  the  sake  of  the  negro  slave. 
That  carried  me  to  the  feet  and  the  friendship  of  Emer- 
son, of  Longfellow,  and  ultimately  of  the  poets  and  leaders 
of  thought  and  science  in  my  time.  Could  I  not,  then  just 
past  my  fiftieth  year,  take  to  myself  what  Jesus  said  to 
one  of  his  friends,  "  Are  you  sure  you  love  me  ?  " 

Yes,  I  love  thee,  but  it  is  since  leaving  thee  as  a  pre- 
ternatural being.   I  find  indeed  that  even  in  the  old  days 


THE   MESSIANIC   "MYSTERY"  357 

my  breast  was  unconsciously  detaching  Jesus  from  the 
Cosmos.   Who  can  love  a  Cosmos? 

Also,  I  had  to  detach  Jesus  from  the  libretti  of  the 
second  and  third  century  plays,  which  show  him  as  the 
central  messianic  figure  of  allegorical  dramatis  personce, 
—  Judas  (type  of  Jewry)  Iscariot  (a  word  made  up  of 
Issachar,  couching  between  two  burdens,  —  servant  under 
tribute,  —  and  scortea  suggesting  the  money-bag,  it  being 
necessary  to  explain  the  unbelief  of  the  Jews,  despite 
miracles,  as  arising  from  self-interest)  ;  Mary  Magdalene 
(see  chapter  xii);  Saul,  alias  of  Paul,  in  adaptation  to  the 
proverb,  "Is  Saul  also  among  the  prophets;  Jesus  Ba- 
rabbas,  and  Bar  Jesus,  equivalents  of  Antichrist ;  Elymas 
the  " sorcerer"  (magus),  i.  e.  Mr.  Worldly-wise-man.  The 
figure  of  John  is  a  notable  example  of  the  freedom  with 
which  theatrical  exigencies  determined  things.  Although 
John  is  called  a  son  of  thunder  (Boanerges),  and  Jesus 
repeatedly  rebukes  him  for  his  ferocity  and  murderous  in- 
tolerance, he  is  assumed  to  be  the  specially  beloved  dis- 
ciple, so  called  in  the  gospel  traditionally  ascribed  to  him 
(John)  though  his  name  is  not  on  it  nor  in  it.  The  tableau 
of  a  beloved  leaning  on  Christ's  bosom  and  a  Satan  (Judas) 
on  the  other  is  too  picturesque  for  any  spectator  to  reflect 
on  the  morality  of  this  favouritism  for  one  disciple  and 
the  selection  of  the  Satan  to  be  treasurer. 

In  witnessing  Rostand's  play,  "  La  Samaritaine,"  I  re- 
marked the  religious  feeling  produced  in  the  audience  by 
the  deception  with  which  Jesus  introduces  himself  to  the 
woman.  He  says  the  sun  is  hot,  and  asks  for  water,  but 
when  after  some  talk  she  offers  him  water  he  says,  "  I  have 
no  thirst  except  for  thy  soul."  It  must  be  that  all  Chris- 
tians feel  that  the  incident  at  Jacob's  well  is  a  scene, 
none  being  troubled  by  the  affectation  of  saying,  "  Call  thy 


358  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

husband,"  when  he  knew  she  had  none.  Some  instinctive 
sense  of  dramatic  licence  must  be  charitably  credited  to 
readers  of  the  story  of  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  who  feel 
no  shock  at  the  succession  of  untruths  and  deceptions 
attributed  to  Jesus.  He  is  represented  as  staying  away 
from  the  sick  man,  in  order  that  he  may  die  ;  he  affects  to 
believe  that  Lazarus  is  only  asleep,  but  finding  his  disci- 
ples pleased  with  the  prospect  of  recovery,  in  which  case 
there  would  be  no  miracle,  he  becomes  frank  (jparresia) 
and  assures  them  that  Lazarus  is  dead ;  he  tells  his  disci- 
ples privately  he  is  glad  Lazarus  is  dead ;  he  tells  Martha, 
when  she  comes  out  to  him  alone,  that  her  brother  shall 
rise  ;  but  when  her  sister  Mary  comes  out,  accompanied  by 
her  Jewish  consolers,  Jesus  breaks  out  into  vehement 
groans  and  lamentations,  lashing  himself  (etarasen  eautori) 
into  this  sham  grief  over  a  man  at  whose  death  he  has 
connived  and  who  would  presently  be  alive !  Even  in  his 
prayer  over  Lazarus  the  pretence  is  kept  up,  and  his  fa- 
ther is  informed,  in  an  aside,  "  I  know  that  thou  hearest 
me  always,  but  because  of  the  multitude  around  I  said  it, 
that  they  may  believe  that  thou  didst  send  me."  Thus  does 
the  Fourth  Gospel  if  taken  prosaically  sink  Jesus  morally 
into  the  grave  of  Lazarus. 

But  the  resurrection  of  Lazarus  is  a  transparent  drama 
made  out  of  the  parable  of  the  rich  man  and  the  beggar. 
This  parable  is  Zoroastrian  and  very  ancient,  being  found 
in  the  Bahman  Fast.1  Among  the  visions  of  Zoroaster 
was  a  "celebrity  with  much  wealth,  whose  soul,  infa- 
mous in  the  body,  was  hungry  and  jaundiced  and  in  hell. 
And  I  saw  a  beggar  with  no  wealth  and  helpless,  and  his 
soul  was  thriving  in  paradise."  (It  will  be  noticed  that 
in  the  Christian  version  the  rich  man's  only  sin  was  his 
1  Sacred  Books  of  the  Eatt,  TO!.  T.  p.  197. 


RESURRECTION  OF  LAZARUS  359 

riches.)  Abraham's  words  to  the  rich  man  —  "neither 
will  they  be  persuaded  if  one  rose  from  the  dead"  — 
were  not  adapted  to  a  faith  built  on  a  resurrection,  and 
that  parable  is  not  found  in  the  Fourth  Gospel.  The 
resurrection  of  a  supernatural  man  is  not  sufficient  for  a 
people  not  supernatural.  Those  who  had  been  looking 
for  a  returning  Christ  had  died,  just  like  the  unbelievers. 
There  was  a  tremendous  necessity  for  an  example  of  the 
resurrection  of  an  ordinary  man.  There  is  audible  in  the 
story  the  pathetic  cry  of  the  human  heart,  and  the  demand 
that  must  be  met  by  any  gospel  claiming  the  faith  of 
humanity.  "  Lord,  if  thou  hadst  been  here  my  brother 
had  not  died !  "  Through  what  ages  has  that  declaration 
ascended  to  cold  and  silent  skies  ?  It  is  found  in  the 
Vedas,  in  Job,  in  the  Psalms.  If  there  is  a  heart  up  there, 
why  are  we  tortured?  To  the  many  apologies  and  expla- 
nations and  pretences  which  imperilled  systems  had  given, 
Christianity  had  to  add  something  more  than  Egyptian 
dreams  and  Platonic  speculations.  A  dead  man  must  arise ; 
it  must  be  done  dramatically,  amid  domestic  grief  and 
neighbourly  sympathy ;  it  must  be  done  doctrinally,  with 
funeral  sermon  turned  to  rejoicings.  And  this  is  all  done 
in  the  story  of  Lazarus  in  such  a  way  that  it  might  sur- 
round every  grave  with  happy  visions.  For  who,  while 
tears  are  falling,  will  pause  to  handle  the  wreaths,  and 
find  whether  they  are  genuine?  Who,  while  the  service 
is  proceeding,  will  analyze  the  details,  and  ask  whether  it 
is  possible  that  Jesus  could  have  practised  such  deception 
and  assumed  such  theatrical  attitudes  as  those  described 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel  ? 

The  forerunners  of  the  freethinkers  of  our  modern  world 
were  active  founders  of  institutions,  political  and  educa- 
tional, but  did  not  dream  of  building  up  anything  practical 


360  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

without  the  aid  of  religion.  Thomas  Jefferson  even  while 
at  William  and  Mary  College  was  a  disbeliever  in  Chris- 
tianity, but  it  was  he  who  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolu- 
tion decreed  for  Virginia  a  day  of  fasting.  Dr.  Benjamin 
Rush  was  a  Universalist  and  Governor  John  Dickinson 
a  deist,  but  in  together  founding  Dickinson  College  in 
Pennsylvania  they  imported  from  Scotland  a  president 
and  faculty  of  Calvinists,  avowedly  because  they  regarded 
it  as  essential  for  success  to  attract  the  Presbyterians. 
Benjamin  Franklin  was  what  would  now  be  pronounced 
an  "infidel,"  but  it  was  he  who  moved  that  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  (1787)  should  be  opened  with  pra'yer. 
Wakefield,  the  founder  of  the  New  Zealand  Colony,  was 
a  theistic  rationalist,  but  he  did  not  even  try  to  begin  or 
carry  on  the  work  without  obtaining  aid  of  the  English 
clergy,  and  establishing  there  the  Church  of  England. 
It  is  probable  that  such  men  assumed  as  an  axiom  that 
the  features  of  religion  which  they  repudiated  were 
merely  incidental  to  the  ethical  system  on  which  society 
was  based.  Thomas  Jefferson,  writing  privately  to  John 
Adams,  said :  — 

"Among  the  sayings  and  discourses  imputed  to  him 
[Jesus]  by  his  biographers,  I  find  many  passages  of  fine 
imagination,  correct  morality,  and  of  the  most  lovely  be- 
nevolence ;  and  others,  again,  of  so  much  ignorance,  of  so 
much  absurdity,  so  much  untruth,  and  imposture,  as  to 
pronounce  it  impossible  that  such  contradictions  should 
have  proceeded  from  the  same  being.  I  separate,  therefore, 
the  gold  from  the  dross,  restore  to  him  the  former,  and 
leave  the  latter  to  the  stupidity  of  some  and  the  roguery  of 
others  of  his  disciples." 

Many  years  ago,  Jefferson's  granddaughters  showed  me 
the  little  book  in  which  he  pasted  passages  from  the  New 


ETHICS  ASCRIBED  TO   CHRIST         361 

Testament  which  he  considered  the  "gold,"  everything 
miraculous  being  omitted  as  dross. 

This  had  already  been  done  (1820)  by  the  learned 
Brahman  dissident,  Rammohun  Roy,  who  published  in 
Sanscrit,  Bengalee,  and  English  his  book  "The  Precepts 
of  Jesus,  the  Guide  to  Peace  and  Happiness."  This  book 
did  not  guide  the  Hindu  author  to  "  peace  and  happiness," 
but  brought  on  him  the  wrath  of  both  Brahmans  and 
missionaries.  But  every  pilgrim,  from  unnatural  to  nat- 
ural religion,  has  made  for  himself  a  similar  selection. 

Such  compilations, — including  my  own  "  Sacred  Antho- 
logy" (1874), — however  restricted  (by  intention)  to  eth- 
ical instructions,  leave  the  mind  still  in  an  atmosphere 
charged  with  superstitions.  The  ethics  ascribed  to  Christ, 
.such  as  the  "  Sermon  on  the  Mount,"  are  largely  post- 
resurrectional  and  quasi-miraculous.  They  are  meant  in 
large  part  for  people  expecting  a  speedy  end  of  the  world. 
Therefore  they  are  exhorted  to  lay  up  no  treasures  on  the 
existing  earth,  take  no  thought  for  the  morrow,  give  all 
their  property  to  the  poor,  disregard  family  ties,  mourn, 
make  themselves  sexless,  hate  the  world,  and  do  or  ab- 
stain from  other  things,  —  conduct  which  for  men  and 
women  living  in  a  permanent  world  would  be  immoral 
and  insane. 

The  tentative  effort  of  Jefferson  to  separate  gold  from 
dross  in  the  "  Gospels"  is  creditable,  and  he  shows,  I  think, 
especial  acumen  in  describing  Paul  as  the  "  first  corrupter 
of  the  doctrines  of  Jesus."  No  miracle  ascribed  to  Jesus 
is  alluded  to  by  Paul,  but  his  fatalism,  clerical  ambition, 
and  falsehood  in  pretending  to  receive  private  revelations 
from  Jesus  after  death,  corrupted  the  morals  of  the  reli- 
gious movement.  His  immeasurable  crime  was  to  restore 
in  the  form  of  Jesus  himself  the  sacrificial  victims  Jesus 


362  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

drove  from  the  temple.    It  is  due  to  Paul  that  Christianity 
rests  upon  a  human  sacrifice.1 

Turning  from  the  messianic  myth  and  the  "  mystery,"  I 
find  a  Jesus  in  contrast  with  the  post-resurrectional  utter- 
ances ascribed  to  him  and  the  accretions  which  have  in- 
vested the  "  Christ "  during  the  ages,  and  been  put  into  the 
New  Testament  by  translators, — such  as  deriving  Jesus 
from  peasant  parents,  making  his  father  and  even  himself 
a  carpenter.  (The  word  TCKTW  means  any  worker  in  wood. 
Joseph  may  have  been  a  sculptor  in  wood.)  Were  the  nar- 
ratives read  as  if  dug  up  in  Persia  and  related  to  Zoroaster, 
we  should  find  in  them  a  gentleman,  traditionally  of  high 
birth,  educated,  and  in  the  best  sense  a  man  of  the  world. 
He  eats  and  drinks  with  personages  of  rank,  admires 
the  Greeks,  exalts  cosmopolitan  Solomon  and  the  "  Gen- 
tile "  Queen  of  Sheba  above  the  provincial  sectarians  of  his 
time,  and  repudiates  priesthood,  sacrifices,  sabbath,  and 
pharisaic  morality.  His  familiarity  with  refined  and  polite 
social  life  appears  in  poetic  parables  and  metaphors  often 
drawn  from  grand  and  elegant  life,  —  a  lost  pearl,  masters 
of  fields  and  vineyards,  wedding  garments,  royal  ambas- 
sadors, precedence  at  feasts,  the  fine  robe  arid  ring,  and 
the  fatted  calf.2 

1  Paul  found  the  early  separatists   enjoying   annually   a  merry  wine 
supper  (1  Cor.  xi)  which  Jesus  himself  had  substituted  for  the  Passover, 
and  suppressed  it  by  pretending  that  Jesus  had  appeared  to  him  and  told 
him  it  was  a  sacrament  in  which  his  disciples  ate  his  flesh  and  drank  his 
blood.    The  Romans  charged  the  Christians  with  cannibalism,  and  grad- 
ually this  became  an  accusation  of  secret  human  sacrifices.    As  the  Romans 
made  no  distinction  between  the  Christian  and  non-Christian  Jews,  the 
Christians  passed  the  accusation  on  to  the  Passover  Jews,  and  multitudes 
of  these  have  suffered  —  many  suffer  to  this  day  —  under  an  accusation  of 
''  ritual  murder  "  which  originated  in  the  flesh-and-blood  sacrament  insti- 
tuted by  Paul's  pretence  of  a  personal  interview  with  the  dead  Jesus. 

2  I  cannot  quote  the  parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  as  a  veritable  utterance 


PREPOSTEROUS   LANGUAGE  363 

The  notion  that  Jesus  drew  around  him  ignorant  and 
poor  "fishermen"  is  fostered  by  a  democratic  age  whose 
creed  is  vox  populi  vox  del.  Fancy  the  absurdity  of  saying 
to  poor  fishermen  the  words  Jesus  is  reported  as  address- 
ing (Luke  xvii,  7-10)  to  his  apostles  alone:  "Who  is 
there  of  you,  having  a  bond  servant  ploughing  or  keeping 
sheep,  that  will  say  unto  him,  when  he  is  come  in  from 
the  field,  Come  straightway  and  sit  down  to  meat ;  and 
will  not  rather  say  unto  him,  Make  ready  wherewith  I 
may  sup,  and  gird  thyself  and  serve  me  till  I  have  eaten 
and  drunken  ? "  No  matter  whether  Jesus  really  said 
this  or  not,  the  writer  of  Luke  could  never  imagine  any- 
thing so  preposterous  as  the  use  of  such  language  to  men 
of  the  lower  class. 

Divesting  all  the  traditional  accounts  of  everything 
that  could  be  called  post-resurrectional  and  everything 
miraculous, — no  miracle  ascribed  to  him  being  known  to 
any  of  the  early  books  of  the  New  Testament,  the  Epis- 
tles,—  I  had  to  consider  whether  there  were  utterances, 
original  in  form  if  not  in  substance,  derivable  from  those 
fragmentary  accounts  which  could  not  have  been  invented 
by  any  of  the  persons  who  report  them  ;  and  whether  put- 
ting these  together  they  indicated  the  presence  about  that 
time  of  an  integral  mind,  and  one  of  extraordinary  genius. 

of  Jesus,  because  I  think  it  was  twisted  by  Pauline  influence  (see  Eph.  ii, 
12, 13,  and  14)  to  represent  the  relation  of  Jew  and  Gentile  in  the  Church. 
The  Gentile  is  the  licentious  prodigal,  the  Jew  the  elder  brother.  But 
that  Jesus  did  utter  some  parable  concerning  individual  immoralities  seems 
probable  from  a  passage  in  Eusebins :  "  The  Gospel  which  comes  to  us  in 
Hebrew  characters  has  directed  the  threat  not  against  the  hider  but  against 
the  profligate.  For  it  has  included  three  servants,  one  which  devoured  the 
substance  with  harlots  and  flute-women,  and  one  which  multiplied,  and  one 
which  hid  the  talent:  afterwards  that  one  (the  profligate)  was  received 
back,  one  simply  blamed,  and  one  (the  hider)  cast  into  prison."  (It  seems 
that  in  the  original  parable  the  chief  usurer  was  censured.) 


364  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

St.  Augustine,  in  his  Commentary  on  John,  says  that 
some  had  removed  from  their  manuscripts  the  story  of 
the  woman  taken  in  adultery.  "  I  imagine,"  he  adds,  "  out 
of  fear  that  impunity  of  sin  were  granted  to  their  wives." 
In  that  case,  too,  the  story,  suppressed  in  other  gospels, 
could  be  preserved  only  by  making  Jesus  partly  take  back 
his  words,  "  Neither  will  I  condemn  thee,"  by  adding, "  Go 
and  no  longer  sin."  The  addition  is  cant.1  As  for  the 
story  in  itself,  —  the  writing  on  the  ground,  the  ac- 
cusers slinking  away,  and  the  title  of  courtesy  with  which 
Jesus  addresses  the  woman,  "Mistress"  (Gunai),  —  I 
cannot  discover  anything  similar  in  eastern  or  oriental 
books.  It  would  have  required  a  first-century  Boccaccio 
to  invent  such  an  exquisite  story.2 

The  most  important  revelation  to  me  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews,  the  only  gospel  written  in  Ara- 
maic, the  language  spoken  in  Jerusalem  in  the  time  of 
Jesus,  is  that  to  which  I  alluded  in  my  conversation  with 
Dr.  Rajendralala  Mitra  in  Calcutta  (chapter  xii).  The 
sentence  has  been  preserved  from  this  suppressed  Ara- 
maic Gospel  by  Epiphanius,  who  writes  (Haer.  xxx,  16)  : 
"  And  they  say  that  he  both  came,  and  (as  their  so-called 
Gospel  has  it)  instructed  them  that  he  had  come  to  dis- 
solve the  Sacrifices :  '  and  unless  ye  cease  from  sacrificing, 

1  At  Grimsby,  England,  when  all  doors  were  closed  against  John  Wes- 
ley, a  woman  of  bad  repute  offered  him,  without  evil  intent,  a  room  in  her 
house.   He  persuaded  her  to  return  to  her  husband  in  Newcastle-on-Tyne 
and  accompanied  her  thither.    That  was  not  cant. 

2  My  learned  friend,  John  M.  Robertson,  M.  P.,  to  whom  I  mentioned  the 
originality  of  the  story,  quoted  from  one  or  two  Latin  authors  the  sentiment 
that  an  accuser  should  be  himself  without  the  fault  he  charges.    This  is 
indeed  our  law  maxim,  that  a  plaintiff  must  come  into  court  with  clean 
hands,  but  the  art  of  genius  is  displayed  in  the  form  and  colour.  As  Con- 
fucius said,  "  The  hide  of  a  dog  and  the  hide  of  a  panther  are  the  same  if 
stripped  of  their  decorative  hair." 


WHY   JESUS  WAS  PUT  TO  DEATH         365 

the  wrath  shall  not  cease  from  you.' "  Dr.  Nicholson  is 
shocked  at  this  threat,  and  suspects  the  Ebionites  of  hav- 
ing altered  what  Jesus  said.  But  surely  it  is  a  true  and 
grand  admonition  by  one  superseding  a  phantasm  of  hea- 
venly egoism,  demanding  gifts  from  men  for  pacification, 
with  the  idea  of  Supreme  Love.  Dr.  Nicholson  connects 
it,  no  doubt  rightly,  with  Luke  xiii,  1-3,  which  should 
probably  read :  "  There  were  some  present  at  that  very  sea- 
son who  told  him  of  the  Galileans  whose  blood  Pilate  had 
mingled  with  their  sacrifices.  And  he  answered,  Think  ye 
these  Galileans  were  sinners  rather  than  all  other  Galileans 
because  they  suffered  these  things  ?  I  tell  you,  No !  And 
unless  ye  cease  from  sacrificing,  the  wrath  will  not  cease 
from  you."  That  is,  they  would  always  be  haunted  by 
the  delusion  of  a  bloodthirsty  god,  a  god  of  wrath,  and 
see  a  judgment,  not  only  in  every  accident,  but  in  every 
calamity  wrought  by  fiendish  men. 

Here  for  the  first  time  I  discovered  why  the  Jews 
sought  the  death  of  Jesus.  In  my  Essay  on  Christianity 
(1876)  I  expressed  the  belief  that  Jesus  "was  not  put 
to  death  because  of  his  beautiful  moral  teachings  or  his 
pure  life,"  but  because  his  religion  "  rendered  a  priesthood 
totally  unnecessary,"  and  because  he  turned  the  people 
against  him  by  overthrowing  their  hopes  of  a  national 
political  Messiah  and  military  deliverer  and  their  future 
glory.  But  the  insufficiency  of  these  teachings,  or  any 
teachings,  to  excite  a  murderous  purpose  against  Jesus  had 
already  been  felt  by  me  before  I  weighed  the  words  of 
the  Aramaic  Gospel,  and  even  these  words  alone  did  not 
explain  the  tragedy.  Denunciations  of  the  sacrifices  are 
found  in  several  prophetic  Psalms,  and  in  the  peculiar  ex- 
pression used  by  Epiphanius  in  citing  the  Aramaic  Gospel 
("  he  both  came  and  instructed  them  that  he  had  come  to 


366  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

destroy  the  sacrifices ")  did  not  refer  exactly  to  verbal 
teaching,  but  to  something  done.  In  revising  the  life  of 
Jesus  I  perceived  that  the  story  of  the  alleged  attack  on 
the  money-changers  in  the  temple  had  been  tampered 
with,  and  that  the  original  story  in  the  Fourth  Gospel 
was:  "He  made  a  whip  of  small  cords  and  drove  out  of 
the  temple  the  sheep  and  oxen,  and  to  those  that  sold 
doves  said,  Remove  them."  The  clumsy  importation  into 
this  text  of  the  painstaking  effort  of  the  Synoptics  to  turn 
the  action  of  Jesus  from  a  demonstration  against  animal 
sacrifice  into  zeal  for  the  temple  and  wrath  against  a 
legitimate  business  led  me  to  reconsider  that  legend  which 
I  had  totally  discarded.  I  reached  the  conclusion,  that  he 
whom  Church  traditions  have  without  scriptural  warrant 
represented  as  a  sort  of  peasant  surrounded  by  peasant 
disciples,  was  on  the  contrary  a  gentleman  of  local  dis- 
tinction, enjoying  the  friendship  of  high  personages,  in- 
cluding Pilate  and  his  wife,  and  that  he  gathered  around 
him  a  number  of  anti-sacrifice  reformers  large  enough  to 
protect  him  in  driving  the  animals  out  of  the  temple. 

In  the  narrative  of  the  trial  of  Jesus  in  the  Fourth 
Gospel  (xix)  the  English  translations  have  massed  to- 
gether the  clauses  of  verse  12,  making  it  appear  that  the 
effort  of  Pilate  to  release  Jesus  was  only  to  secure  his 
acquittal  at  the  trial.  But  in  the  original  the  first  clause 
is  a  distinct  sentence:  "Thenceforth  Pilate  sought  to  re- 
lease him."  Taken  in  connection  with  the  warning  sent 
Pilate  by  his  wife  to  do  nothing  against  the  just  man,  and 
the  care  of  the  Roman  soldiers  not  to  break  any  bones, 
and  the  entombment  in  a  rich  man's  sepulchre  without 
embalmment,  a  fair  argument  may  be  made  that  Pilate, 
while  affecting  to  surrender  Jesus  to  the  mob,  continued 
his  effort  to  save  him,  and  that  when  Mary  Magdalene 


DEATH   OF   JESUS   ESSENTIAL  367 

went  to  the  sepulchre  while  it  was  yet  dark,  it  was  to  a 
living  Jesus  that  she  cried,  "My  Master!"  It  is  possible 
that  this  lady  of  title  and  property  acted  with  the  advice 
of  Pilate  and  his  wife,  and  went  while  it  was  yet  dark  in 
order  that  she  might  spirit  off  Jesus  to  a  place  of  safety. 
There  is  DO  evidence  that  Jesus  received  any  fatal  wound. 

However  this  may  be,  it  was  essential  for  pious  and 
ecclesiastical  purposes  that  the  purely  human  Jesus  should 
be  declared  dead,  and  that  there  should  emerge  from  his 
sepulchre  a  Messiah,  —  a  Christ, — and  also  that  the  local 
traditions  reporting  the  real  man  should  be  entombed, 
after  selecting  from  them  just  such  passages  as  might  be 
edited  and  adapted  to  the  supernatural  founder  of  the 
Church  and  Priesthood.  For  human  love  and  sympathies 
had  to  be  preserved,  as  well  as  divine  sanctities  of  the 
sword  and  of  creeds  and  inquisitorial  power.  Fortunately, 
however,  literary  art  at  the  end  of  the  first  century  and 
in  the  second  was  not  equal  to  the  delicate  task  of  weld- 
ing the  human  Jesus  with  the  Christ  finely  enough  to 
prevent  criticism  from  separating  them  sufficiently  to  re- 
cover, as  I  think,  to  some  extent  at  least,  the  man  some 
have  thought  irrecoverable  and  others  entirely  mythical. 

Before  quoting  the  ideas  that  appear  genuine  in  the 
alleged  utterances  of  Jesus,  let  me  warn  my  reader  that 
they  are  not  selected  for  their  intrinsic  truth  nor  for 
their  originality.  The  belief  that  Jesus  was  the  son  of  a 
peasant  or  a  carpenter,  or  particularly  a  man  of  sor- 
rows,—  traditional  vestment  given  him  to  attract  the 
sympathies  of  the  poor  and  excite  their  wonder,  —  can- 
not remain  in  unprepossessed  eyes.  There  are  in  the 
Solomonic  books  more  than  fifty  sayings  that  flower  in 
the  parables  and  metaphors  of  Jesus,  who  was  without 
any  pretension  to  originality.  He  was  no  prophet,  no 


368  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

rabbi,  and  but  incidentally  a  public  teacher ;  lie  was,  I 
believe,  a  scholar  of  genius  trying  to  deliver  the  people 
from  practically  pernicious  superstitions,  and  freely  — 
eloquently,  too  —  using  for  that  end  all  the  wisdom  he 
could  get  hold  of. 

Next  to  Siddartha  (Buddha)  stands  in  the  earliest  an- 
nals of  his  life  his  relative  and  devout  disciple,  Ananda. 
It  is  related  that  Ananda,  after  a  long  walk  in  the 
country,  met  Matangi,  a  woman  of  low  caste,  near  a  well 
and  asked  her  for  some  water.  She  tells  him  she  must 
not  come  near  him,  being  of  lower  caste.  Ananda  replies, 
"  My  sister,  I  ask  not  for  thy  caste  or  thy  family,  I  ask 
only  for  a  draught  of  water."  She  becomes  a  devotee  of 
Buddha.  There  is  no  reason  why  this  Buddhist  anecdote 
should  not  have  been  known  to  the  scholars  of  Jerusalem 
College,  where  the  great  liberal  thinker  Hillel  presided, 
and  where  probably  Jesus,  as  said  in  Luke  (ii,  40,  52), 
grew  strong,  advanced  in  wisdom,  and  was  beloved. 

In  Judea  the  caste  was  racial,  that  of  being  the  "  chosen 
people  "  of  Abrahamic  descent,  and  the  especial  application 
of  its  pretensions  was  against  the  Samaritans.  There  is 
every  reason  why  a  man  of  genius  and  of  high  position 
should  take  pains  to  visit  Samaria,  natural  that  he  should 
talk  with  a  woman  there,  again  natural  that  when  his 
friends  marvel  at  his  talking  with  the  woman  he  should 
have  reminded  them  of  Ananda  and  the  woman  of  low 
caste  at  the  well.  The  Samaritans  themselves  could  indeed 
provide  the  scenery :  they  were  Assyrians,  and  Babylon 
had  long  been  a  great  centre  of  Buddhism,  whose  mission- 
aries and  actors  were  going  through  all  the  world.1  They 

1  "  Babylone  e"tait  devenue  depuis  quelque  temps  un  yrai  foyer  de 
Bonddhisme ;  Boudasp  (Bodhisattva)  e'tait  re'pute'  nn  sage  chalde'en  et 
le  fondateur  du  sabisme.  Le  sabisme  lui-meme,  qu'e"tait-il  ?  Ce  que  son 


A  BASE   INTERPOLATION  369 

would  readily  associate  the  Well  of  Ananda  with  their 
Well  of  Jacob.  But  the  coincidence  relates  solely  to  the 
frame  around  the  picture.  The  repudiation  of  caste  is  a 
small  thing  compared  with  the  sublime  and  far-reaching 
thought  of  Jesus :  "  Mistress,  believe  me,  the  hour  comes 
when  neither  in  this  mountain  nor  yet  in  Jerusalem  shall 
ye  worship  the  Father  :  the  hour  comes,  and  now  is,  when 
the  true  worshippers  shall  worship  the  Father  in  spirit 
and  in  truth."  Who  would  have  been  bold  enough,  even 
had  he  been  liberal  enough,  to  clear  away  all  the  most 
sacred  places  in  one  tremendous  affirmation?  Who  could 
invent  it?  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  suppress  it.  Even  in 
the  one  gospel  that  ventures  to  preserve  the  grand  utter- 
ance it  could  only  be  done  by  attaching  to  it  a  sentence 
retracting  it :  "  Ye  worship  that  which  ye  know  not ;  we 
worship  that  which  we  know :  for  salvation  is  from  the 
Jews." 

This  interpolation  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  (iv,  22)  is  the 
basest  in  the  New  Testament,  as  the  utterance  it  perverts 
is  the  highest.  It  began  the  sectarian  work  of  choking 
up  the  Well  which  symbolized  a  human  religion  in  the 
water  refreshing  all  without  regard  to  sect  or  dogma. 
"  There  is  nothing  to  be  seen,"  says  Stuart-Glennie 
("  Pilgrim  Memories  "),  concerning  Jacob's  Well,  "  but 

Etymologic  indique :  le  baptisme,  c'est-a-dire  la  religion  des  baptemes 
multiplies,  la  souche  de  la  secte  eiicore  existante  qu'on  appelle  chrEtiens 
de  Saint  Jean  ou  menda'ites,  et  que  les  Arabes  appellent  el-mogtasila,  les 
baptistes."  —  Renan. 

It  is  even  possible  that  in  the  Samaritan  woman's  legend  -we  have  a 
reappearance  of  Draupadi,  who  with  Krishna's  advice  was  the  wife  of  the 
five  Pandava  princes,  and  who  pretended  to  be  enamoured  of  one  "  who 
was  not  her  husband,"  the  warrior  Kichaka,  who  perished  because  of  his 
attempts  on  her  loyalty  and  modesty.  In  the  ancient  time  of  polyandry, 
Draupadi  was  the  ideal  wife,  woman,  and  princess.  She  was  widely 
famous,  and  is  still  on  the  stage  in  India. 


370  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

beside  a  little  mound  of  ruins,  a  shallow  pit  half  choked 
with  rubbish. "  The  rival  sects  surrounding  the  "  holy 
places  "  with  their  gaudy  temples  —  each  maintaining  its 
Gerizim  or  its  Jerusalem,  its  Mecca  or  Rome  or  Constan- 
tinople —  are  all  unconsciously  attesting  by  their  neglect 
of  Jacob's  Well  that  in  two  thousand  years  Christendom 
has  never  been  able  to  appreciate,  much  less  invent  the 
sublime  utterance  associated  with  it.  The  utterance  — 
wheresoever  or  to  whomsoever  spoken  —  is  that  of  a  great 
thinker  and  a  great  heart.  Who  was  it? 

It  is  not  a  question  of  whether  there  had  not  been  as 
great  thinkers — or  greater  —  who  spoke  with  equal  catho- 
licity before  our  era ;  but  the  simply  historical  question 
whether  there  was  one  such  at  the  beginning  of  our  era, 
and  whether  we  are  to  identify  him  as  the  individual  to 
whom  the  paradox  is  ascribed,  with  timid  reservation,  in 
the  (anonymous)  Fourth  Gospel. 

Setting  aside  all  that  is  of  messianic,  post-resurrectional, 
perfunctory,  or  supernatural  accent  in  the  reported  sayings 
of  Jesus,  and  conceiving  him  as  a  man  of  genius  who 
never  dreamed  of  founding  a  new  religious  organization, 
I  subjoin  the  sentences  and  statements  which  I  accept  (on 
literary  grounds)  in  substance  just  as  I  accept  the  reported 
utterances  of  Socrates  and  Confucius. 

I  begin  with  that  declaration  which,  translated  into 
action,  risked  —  and  possibly  cost  —  his  life. 

I  am  come  to  dissolve  the  Sacrifices ;  and  unless  you 
cease  from  sacrificing,  the  Wrath  shall  not  cease  from  you. 

Go  you  and  learn  the  meaning  of  this :  I  desire  merci- 
fulness, not  sacrifice. 

If  you  carry  a  gift  to  an  altar,  bethink  thee  whether 
thy  fellow  man  has  any  claim  upon  thee ;  leave  there  thy 
gift  for  the  altar  unoffered  and  first  answer  the  need  of 
man. 


SAYINGS   OF   JESUS  371 

If  you  love  not  your  brother  man  whom  you  have  seen, 
how  can  you  love  God  whom  you  have  not  seen  ? 

If  thy  brother  hath  offended  in  anything  and  hath 
made  thee  amends,  seven  times  in  a  day  receive  him. 
Simon  said,  Seven  times  in  a  day?  Jesus  answered,  I 
tell  thee  also  unto  seventy  times  seven ;  for  in  the  pro- 
phets likewise  after  they  were  anointed  by  the  Holy  Spirit 
utterance  of  error  was  found. 

The  Sabbath  was  made  for  man,  not  man  for  the  Sab- 
bath. 

Beholding  a  man  working  on  the  Sabbath,  Jesus  said 
to  him,  Man,  if  thou  knowest  what  thou  doest,  blessed  are 
thou ;  but  if  thou  knowest  not,  thou  art  under  a  curse,  a 
mere  law-breaker. 

Let  your  light  shine  before  men.  A  lamp  is  not  lit  to 
be  put  under  a  bushel. 

The  lamp  of  the  body  is  the  eye.  If  thine  eye  be  sound, 
the  whole  body  is  illumined ;  if  the  eye  be  diseased,  the 
whole  body  is  in  darkness.  If  the  inner  eye  be  darkened, 
how  great  is  the  darkness! 

Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof. 

By  their  fruits  both  trees  and  men  are  known. 

Each  tree  is  known  by  its  own  fruit. 

Just  now  my  mother  the  Holy  Spirit  took  me  by  one 
of  my  hairs  and  bore  me  up  on  to  the  great  mountain 
Tabor. l 

Whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to  you,  do 
ye  even  so  to  them:  on  this  hang  all  the  law  and  the 
prophets. 

The  lawyer  to  whom  Jesus  said,  Love  thy  neighbour 
as  thyself,  asked,  Who  is  my  neighbour  ?  Jesus  said :  A 
certain  man  was  going  down  from  Jerusalem  to  Jericho  ; 
and  he  fell  among  robbers,  which  both  stripped  him  and 
beat  him,  and  departed  leaving  him  half  dead.  And  by 
chance  a  certain  priest  was  going  down  that  way ;  and 
when  he  saw  him  he  passed  by  on  the  other  side.  And 

1  This  isolated  fragment  ia  quoted  simply  because  of  the  significance  of 
the  fact  that  in  the  only  reference  to  the  Holy  Spirit  by  the  pre-resurrec- 
tional  Jesus  he  personifies  it  aa  a  woman.  This  heresy  alone  was  enough 
to  suppress  the  Aramaic  Gospel. 


372  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

in  like  manner  a  Levite  also,  when  he  came  to  the  place, 
and  saw  him,  passed  by  on  the  other  side.  But  a  certain 
Samaritan  as  he  journeyed,  came  where  he  was :  and  when 
he  saw  him  he  was  moved  with  compassion,  and  came  to 
him,  and  bound  up  his  wounds  pouring  on  them  oil  and 
wine  ;  and  he  set  him  on  his  own  beast,  and  brought  him 
to  an  inn  and  took  care  of  him.  And  on  the  morrow  he 
took  out  two  pence,  and  gave  them  to  the  host,  and  said, 
Take  care  of  him;  and  whatsoever  thou  spendest  more,  I, 
when  I  come  back  again,  will  repay  thee.  Which  of  these 
three,  thinkest  thou,  proved  neighbour  to  him  that  fell 
among  the  robbers  ?  And  he  said,  He  that  shewed  mercy 
on  him.  And  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Go,  and  do  thou 
likewise. 

Now  as  they  went  on  their  way,  he  entered  into  a 
certain  village :  and  a  certain  woman  named  Martha 
received  him  into  her  house.  And  she  had  a  sister  called 
Mary,  which  also  sat  at  the  Lord's  feet,  and  heard  his  word. 
But  Martha  was  cumbered  about  much  serving ;  and  she 
came  up  to  him,  and  said,  Lord,  dost  thou  not  care  that  my 
sister  leaves  me  to  serve  alone  ?  bid  her  help  me.  Jesus 
said  Martha,  Martha,  thou  art  anxious  and  troubled  about 
many  things ;  one  dish  is  enough :  Mary  hath  chosen  a 
good  share,  which  must  not  be  taken  from  her.  (No  doubt 
said  with  some  humour.) 

The  divine  sway  comes  not  visibly,  so  that  a  man  may 
say,  Lo  here !  lo  there !  for  it  is  with  (or  within)  you.  It 
is  like  unto  leaven  which  a  woman  hid  in  three  measures 
of  meal,  till  it  was  all  leavened. 

Suffer  the  little  children  to  come  to  me ;  forbid  them 
not;  of  such  is  the  kingdom  of  the  heavens.1 

Many  that  are  first  shall  be  last,  and  last  that  shall 
be  first. 

The  mother  and  brothers  of  Jesus  said  to  him,  John 
the  Baptist  baptizeth  for  remission  of  sins :  let  us  go  and 
be  baptized  by  him.  But  he  said  to  them,  Wherein  have 

1  Although  Jesus  at  times  uses  this  phrase, "  kingdom  of  the  heavens,"  it 
is  of  tener  ascribed  to  him  in  a  sense  he  repudiated  with  emphasis ;  it  was 
not  something1  external,  in  another  world,  nor  in  the  future,  nor  was  it 
anything  royal. 


SAYINGS   OF    JESUS  373 

I  sinned  that  I  should  go  and  be  baptized  by  him  except 
perhaps  this  very  thing  that  I  have  said  is  ignorance. 

John  the  Baptist  is  great,  yet  he  that  is  but  little  in 
the  (real)  kingdom  of  the  heavens  is  greater.  For  from 
the  days  of  John  the  Baptist  till  now  this  kingdom  (that 
is  within)  suffers  by  violence,  and  by  the  violent  who 
would  take  it  by  force. 

It  is  like  unto  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  a  man 
took,  and  cast  into  his  own  garden ;  and  it  grew,  and 
became  a  tree ;  and  the  birds  of  the  heavens  lodged  in 
the  branches  thereof. 

The  woman  (of  Samaria)  said  to  him,  Our  fathers  wor- 
shipped in  this  mountain ;  and  ye  say,  that  in  Jerusalem 
is  the  place  where  men  ought  to  worship.  Jesus  said 
Mistress,  believe  me,  the  hour  is  coming  when  neither 
in  this  mountain,  nor  in  Jerusalem,  shall  ye  worship  the 
Father.  But  the  hour  comes,  and  now  is,  when  true  wor- 
shippers shall  worship  the  Father  in  mind  and  heart :  for 
such  the  Father  also  seeks.  God  is  spirit :  they  that 
worship  him  must  worship  in  spirit  and  sincerity. 

The  scribes  and  the  Pharisees  bring  a  woman  taken  up 
for  adultery :  and  having  placed  her  in  the  midst  they  said 
to  him,  Teacher,  this  woman  has  been  taken  up  in  adul- 
tery, in  the  very  act ;  and  in  the  law  Moses  commanded 
us  to  stone  such :  what  dost  thou  say  ?  Jesus  having 
bent  down,  wrote  with  his  finger  upon  the  ground.  But 
as  they  continued  asking  him,  lie  unbent  and  said  to  them, 
Let  the  sinless  one  of  you  first  cast  against  her  the 
stone.  And  having  bent  down  again,  he  kept  writing 
upon  the  ground.  But  they  went  out  one  by  one,  beginning 
from  the  elder  ones,  and  Jesus  was  left  alone  with  the 
woman.  And  Jesus  having  unbent,  said  to  her,  Mistress, 
where  are  they  ?  Hath  none  condemned  thee  ?  She  said, 
None,  sir.  Jesus  said,  Neither  will  I  condemn  thee. 

Say  not  ye,  There  are.  yet  four  months,  and  then  com- 
eth  the  harvest?  Behold  I  say  unto  you,  Lift  up  your 
eyes,  and  look  on  the  fields,  that  they  are  white  already 
unto  harvest. 

Ye  have  heard  it  said,  An  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth  for 
a  tooth,  but  I  say,  Resist  not  him  that  is  evil.  Ye  have 


374  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

heard  it  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbour  and  hate  thine 
enemy :  I  say,  Love  your  enemies. 

Why  are  ye  anxious  about  raiment?  Consider  the 
lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  grow :  they  toil  not,  spin  not ; 
yet  Solomon  amid  all  his  glory  never  arrayed  himself  like 
one  of  these.  (The  Palestine  lilies  are  gorgeous.) 

Be  not  anxious  for  the  morrow  :  the  morrow  will  be  anx- 
ious for  itself.  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof. 

Judge  not ! 

Give  not  that  which  is  holy  to  the  dogs,  which  turn 
and  tear  you ;  cast  not  your  pearls  before  swine,  which 
trample  them  under  their  feet. 

Wide  and  broad  is  the  path  to  destruction,  and  many 
enter  the  wide  gate  :  how  narrow  the  gate  and  straitened 
the  way  (of  true)  life,  and  how  few  find  it ! 

Certain  scribes  and  Pharisees  said,  Teacher,  we  would 
see 'a  sign  from  thee.  Jesus  answered,  An  evil  and  sen- 
sual time  looks  for  a  miracle :  no  miracle  will  occur. 

Jesus  (speaking  in  the  temple  to  the  chief  priests) 
said,  Did  ye  never  read  in  the  Scriptures,  The  stone 
which  the  builders  rejected  was  made  the  head  of  the 
corner?  He  that  falleth  on  this  stone  shall  be  broken, 
but  on  whomsoever  it  shall  fall  it  will  grind  him  to  dust. 

Call  no  man  master. 

One  of  the  Pharisees  desired  him  to  eat  with  him. 
A  woman  of  the  town  when  she  knew  that  he  was  sitting 
at  meat  in  the  Pharisee's  house  brought  a  flask  of  oint- 
ment and  began  to  wet  his  feet  with  tears  and  wiped 
them  with  the  hair  of  her  head  and  kissed  his  feet  and 
anointed  them  with  the  ointment. 

She  has  loved  much. 

The  house  was  filled  with  the  odour  of  the  ointment ; 
but  some  said,  To  what  purpose  this  waste  ?  The  ointment 
might  have  been  sold  for  three  hundred  pence  and  given 
to  the  poor,  and  they  murmured  against  her.  Jesus  said, 
Let  her  alone  ;  why  trouble  her  ?  On  me  she  has  wrought 
a  good  work.  She  has  done  what  she  could. 

Put  not  new  wine  into  old  wine-skins,  lest  they  burst. 

Be  wise  as  serpents,  and  harmless  as  doves. 

If  any  man  will  be  great,  let  him  serve. 


SAYINGS   OF   JESUS  375 

The  lowly  shall  be  exalted,  the  proud  humbled. 

Blind  guides  strain  out  on  the  gnat,  and  swallow  a 
camel. 

Give,  and  it  shall  be  given  you. 

The  measure  ye  mete  shall  be  measured  to  you. 

Cast  the  beam  from  thine  eye,  before  noticing  the 
mote  in  thy  neighbour's  eye. 

He  is  a  great  criminal,  who  hath  grieved  the  spirit  of 
his  brother. 

No  thank  to  you  if  you  love  them  that  love  you,  but 
there  is  thank  if  you  love  your  enemies  and  them  that 
hate  you. 

Be  ye  never  joyful  save  when  'you  have  looked  upon 
your  brother  in  charity. 

Be  as  lambkins  (though)  in  the  midst  of  wolves. 

The  son  and  the  daughter  should  inherit  alike. 

It  is  happier  to  give  than  to  receive. 

No  servant  can  serve  two  masters. 

Out  of  entire  heart  and  out  of  entire  mind. 

What  is  the  profit  if  a  man  gain  the  entire  world,  and 
lose  his  life? 

Become  proved  bankers. 

If  ye  have  not  been  faithful  in  the  little,  who  will 
trust  you  with  the  large  ? 

Happy  are  the  lowly ;  they  enjoy  the  earth. 

Happy  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  justice : 
in  them  it  is  fulfilled. 

Happy  are  the  compassionate ;  they  shall  receive  com- 
passion. 

Happy  are  the  pure  in  heart. 

Happy  are  the  peacemakers. 

The  evil  one  is  the  tempter. 

Give  no  opportunity  to  the  evil  one. 

A  man  sowed  good  seed  in  his  field,  but  while  he 
slept  his  enemy  sowed  tares  amid  his  wheat  and  went  off. 
When  the  blade  sprang  up  and  bore  forth  fruit  there 
appeared  the  tares  also,  and  the  servants  of  the  house- 
holder came  and  said,  Sir,  didst  thou  not  sow  good  seed 
in  thy  field  ?  Whence  then  has  it  tares  ?  And  he  said 
unto  them,  An  enemy  hath  done  this. 


376  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

In  these  selections  I  have  included  only  what  I  believe 
Jesus  said.  There  are  several  things  reported  in  the  New 
Testament  in  which  there  is  reality  and  beauty,  but  so 
much  disguised  that  it  is  difficult  to  give  them  precise 
expression.  No  doubt  there  was  some  real  remark  in  the 
concluding  reference  to  John  the  Baptist  in  Luke  vii, 
31-34,  but  Jesus  could  not  have  used  the  phrase  *  Son  of 
man'  as  a  title.  For  the  rest,  there  is  both  humour  and 
pathos  in  the  incident:  — 

Whereunto  then  shall  I  liken  the  men  of  this  genera- 
tion, and  to  what  are  they  like?  They  are  like  unto  chil- 
dren that  sit  in  the  market-place,  and  call  one  to  another ; 
which  say,  We  piped  unto  you,  and  ye  did  not  dance ;  we 
wailed,  and  ye  did  not  weep.  For  John  the  Baptist  is 
come  eating  no  bread  nor  drinking  wine;  and  ye  say,  He 
hath  a  devil.  The  Son  of  man  is  come  eating  and  drink- 
ing; and  ye  say,  Behold  a  gluttonous  man,  and  a  wine- 
bibber,  a  friend  of  publicans  and  sinners !  But  wisdom  is 
justified  of  all  her  children. 

It  is  not  be  considered  that  those  who  do  not  accept 
narratives  of  supernatural  events  as  history  are  indifferent 
to  their  significance.  It  is  not  merely  as  poetry  that  such 
legends  as  that  of  the  Nativity  are  valuable,  but  as  serious 
witnesses  to  the  mental  and  moral  conditions  amid  which 
were  shaped  traditions  literally  unhistoric.  In  the  Nativ- 
ity we  have  a  dramatic  and  realistic  composition  based 
on  an  earlier  story  of  the  baptism  of  Jesus.  The  earliest 
account  is  certainly  that  of  the  Aramaic  Gospel :  — 

When  the  people  had  been  baptized,  Jesus  also  came 
and  was  baptized  by  John.  And  as  he  went  up  the  hea- 
vens were  opened,  and  he  saw  the  Holy  Spirit  in  shape  of 
a  dove  descending  and  entering  into  him.  And  a  voice  out 
of  the  heaven,  saying,  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son,  in  thee 
I  am  well  pleased :  and  again,  I  have  this  day  begotten 
thee.  And  straightway  a  great  light  shone  around  the 


BAPTISM   OF   JESUS  377 

place.  And  when  John  saw  it  he  saith  unto  him,  Who 
art  thou,  Lord  ?  And  again  a  voice  out  of  heaven  unto 
him,  This  is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased. 
Then  John  fell  down  before  him  and  said,  I  pray  thee, 
Lord,  baptize  thou  me.  But  he  prevented  him,  saying, 
Let  be ;  for  thus  it  is  becoming  that  all  things  should  be 
fulfilled.  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  the  Lord  had  come 
up  from  the  water,  the  entire  fountain  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
descended  and  rested  upon  him  and  said  to  him,  My  son, 
in  all  the  prophets  did  I  await  thee,  that  thou  mightest 
come  and  I  might  rest  in  thee ;  for  thou  art  my  rest ;  thou 
art  my  first  born  Son  that  reign  est  forever. 

In  no  other  gospel  are  found  the  words,  "This  day 
have  I  begotten  thee.  "  When  that  was  written  it  could 
not  have  been  believed  that  this  divine  paternity  dated 
back  to  a  physical  event  thirty  years  before.  That  story 
was  not  yet  completed  in  the  middle  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, when  we  find  Clement  of  Alexandria  (Stromateis) 
saying  that  some  people  in  his  time  were  maintaining  that 
Mary  was  a  virgin,  an  opinion  which  he  condemns.  The 
Holy  Spirit  overshadowing  Jesus  at  baptism  is  the  same 
that  later  overshadows  Mary,  to  whom  was  transferred  the 
title  he  had  applied  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  —  "  My  mother/' 
The  great  light  which  shines  over  the  baptism,  not  men- 
tioned in  the  other  Gospels,  becomes  afterwards  the  glory 
that  shone  around  the  shepherds.  The  maternal  words  of 
the  Spirit  entering  Jesus  at  baptism  in  the  Aramaic  nar- 
rative —  a  dove  which  he  alone  saw  or  heard  —  correspond 
with  the  words  of  Simeon,  who  came  by  the  Spirit  into 
the  Temple.1 

1  In  the  ancient  Lalita  Vistara  it  is  related  that  an  inspired  rishi  or 
sage,  dwelling  in  the  Himalayas,  named  Asita,  became  informed  by  por- 
tents of  the  birth  of  a  future  lawgiver,  as  the  son  of  King  Suddhodana, 
at  Kapilavastu,  and  journeyed  thither  to  pay  his  homage  to  the  infant. 
Among  the  portents  Asita  heard  joyful  gods  acclaiming  in  the  sky  Buddha's 
name,  and  he  saw  far  off  the  babe  in  his  cradle. 


378  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

Theologians  have  naturally  claimed  that  the  words  ad- 
dressed to  Jesus  by  the  Jews,  "  We  were  not  born  of  for- 
nication," were  a  sneer,  and  prove  their  knowledge  that 
Joseph  was  not  the  father  of  Jesus.  The  Jewish  tradition 
that  Jesus  was  the  son  of  a  young  Roman  named  Panthera 
might  seem  fortified  by  the  alleged  rudeness  of  Jesus  to 
his  mother,  "  Woman,  what  have  I  to  do  with  thee  ?  "  and 
his  apparent  refusal  to  see  her  and  his  brethren  when  they 
asked  to  see  him  (Mark  iii,  31-35).  It  is  also  said  that  the 
brothers  of  Jesus  did  not  believe  in  him.  But  such  texts 
are  mainly  messianic  and  mean  that  Jesus  did  not  derive 
his  wisdom  from  earthly  parentage,  but  as  one  begotten 
"  not  of  the  will  of  man,  but  of  God."  In  the  genealogy 
of  Jesus  (Matt,  i)  the  only  wives  mentioned  are  those 
about  whom  some  irregularity  was  traditional  —  Tamar, 
Ruth,  Bathsheba,  Mary,  —  and  it  is  possible  that  in  th« 
post-resurrectional  era  it  had  become  important  to  accept 
and  magnify  the  alleged  illegitimacy. 

It  is  not  improbable  that  the  superstition  about  illegiti- 
macy, as  under  some  conditions  a  sign  of  a  hero's  heavenly 
origin,  may  have  had  some  foundation  in  the  facts  of  he- 
redity. In  times  when  love  or  even  passion  had  little  con- 
nection with  any  marriage,  and  none  with  royal  marriages, 
the  offspring  of  an  amour  might  naturally  manifest  more 
force  of  character  than  the  legitimate,  and  the  inherited 
sensual  impulses,  often  displayed  in  noble  energies,  might 
prove  of  enormous  importance  in  breaking  down  an  old 
oppression  continued  by  an  automatic  legitimacy  of  suc- 
cession. 

The  phrase,  "  entire  fountain  of  the  Holy  Spirit,"  is  Zoroastrian :  in 
the  Avesta  the  Holy  Spirit  is  Anahita ;  her  influence  is  always  described 
as  a  fountain  descending  on  the  saints  or  heroes  to  whom  she  gives 
strength. 


THE   RESURRECTION   MYTH  379 

The  narrative  of  the  Annunciation  and  Nativity  is  in- 
serted in  the  New  Testament  with  simplicity,  and  without 
any  fraudulent  effort  to  harmonize  it  with  the  earlier  bio- 
graphy. Mary  says  to  Jesus,  "  Thy  father  and  I  have 
sought  thee  ;  "  she  makes  the  usual  sacrifice  in  the  Temple 
for  purification  ;  and  despite  the  offerings  to  the  infant  of 
gold,  frankincense,  and  myrrh,  it  is  said  his  brothers  did 
not  believe  in  him.  The  story  has  become  to  us  a  Christ- 
mas carol  which  testifies,  however,  to  the  exaltation  of  pop- 
ular faith  and  hope  when  it  was  believed  that  Jesus  had 
risen  from  the  dead,  and  that  he  would  speedily  reappear 
in  resplendent  power  to  bring  peace  on  earth  and  joy  to 
all  mankind.  My  own  belief  is  that  it  was  written  out  as 
a  play,  with  borrowings  from  old  Buddhist  plays,  and  was 
acted  in  the  villages.  And  all  this  brings  me  testimony 
that  there  actually  was  at  that  period  a  great  original 
orator  who  so  uplifted  and  charmed  the  best  minds  around 
him  —  probably  not  many  —  that  they  could  not  bear  the 
thought  of  his  death ;  and  that  one  of  these,  the  Mag- 
dalene, reporting  that  she  had  seen  him  after  his  supposed 
death,  though,  as  Luke  says,  the  disciples  regarded  her 
story  as  idle  talk,  nevertheless  gave  rise  to  dramas  of 
martyrdom  and  resurrection.  Out  of  the  womb  of  one 
Mary  Jesus  was  born,  out  of  the  heart  of  another  Mary 
he  was  born  again.  As  she  sat  alone  beside  the  sepulchre, 
she  heard  a  voice  saying,  "  Why  weepest  thou?"  "  Because 
they  have  taken  away  my  master  and  I  know  not  where 
they  have  laid  him  !"  "Mary!"  "Rabboni —  my  master!" 

Mary  does  not  speak  as  if  she  supposed  Jesus  had  died, 
and  it  cannot  now  be  determined  whether  the  Jesus  she 
saw  "  while  it  was  yet  dark  "  was  living  or  a  vision. 

Had  the  loving  lady  —  the  most  calumniated  that  ever 
lived  —  foreseen  what  was  to  come,  the  vision,  if  such 


380  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

it  was,  could  not  have  occurred.  Mary's  heart  would 
have  said,  "Rest,  my  beloved!  Sleep  on  till  a  purer  age 
can  raise  thee  for  a  higher,  not  a  lower,  career, — for  a 
loving,  not  cursing,  career!  The  earth  is  dark  without 
thee,  but  thou  must  not  rise  to  incarnate  the  authority  of 
cruel  gods,  and  crown  the  power  of  cruel  men,  and  trace 
thy  steps  through  history  in  blood  of  hearts  most  like 
thine  own!"  But  Mary  saw  not  that;  her  love  was  not 
that  of  the  penitent  of  Christian  fiction,  but  that  of  the 
pure  human  lover  of  a  great  lover ;  and  if  Jesus  is  ever 
released  by  the  angel  Imagination  from  his  tomb  of  pious 
and  moral  mediocrity,  there  will  come  forth  with  him 
grand  epics  and  romances,  among  these  that  of  the  Lady 
of  Maudleyn  Castle,  whose  wealth  helped  to  support  her 
Beloved  when  from  being  rich  he  had  become  poor. 

An  intelligent  American  fellow-traveller  said  to  me, 
"  Don't  feel  distressed  at  not  visiting  Palestine.  My  wife 
there  and  I  came  all  the  way  from  Boston,  chiefly  to  visit 
the  places  associated  with  Jesus;  and  both  of  us  came 
away,  feeling  rather  sorry  we  had  gone.  It  is  difficult  to 
explain  our  disillusion,  but  it  was  partly  the  vulgarization 
by  showmen  of  everything  sacred,  and  the  sectarian  mon- 
uments, splendid  memorials  of  intolerance,  continually 
exciting  disgust,  instead  of  the  sweet  and  happy  emotions 
we  had  expected." 

I  easily  recognized  in  this  Boston  gentleman  an  old- 
fashioned  intellectual  Socinian,  whose  ideal  was  a  Jesus 
not  too  far,  nor  yet  too  near.  My  early  Methodist  train- 
ing in  the  South  had  continued  through  all  vicissitudes, 
as  an  increasing  love  for  my  teachers,  for  those  who 
helped  me  at  a  pinch,  whether  they  were  ancient  or  mod- 
ern. There  are  in  my  "Sacred  Anthology"  some  selec- 
tions from  Buddha, — such  as  his  "Excellencies,"  —  and 


MY  VISION  381 

some  from  Saadi,  which  I  ceased  to  read  to  my  congrega- 
tion as  Lessons,  because  they  brought  those  men  before 
me  so  vividly  that  the  strain  on  my  feeling  was  too  great. 
The  ideas  I  gradually  formed  of  Jesus  as  a  man,  and  my 
interpretations  as  given  above,  of  what  he  really  thought 
and  felt  (so  far  as  there  were  any  data  before  me)  awak- 
ened in  me  a  great  love  for  him.  Out  there  on  our  ship, 
in  the  Suez  Canal,  in  the  darkness,  it  was  as  if  he  sat  on 
the  deck  beside  me,  and  said  softly,  "  I  was  lonely  in  life 
because  the  age  was  frantic  about  religion,  and  everybody 
was  trying  to  make  me  out  some  kind  of  a  priest  or  prophet 
or  messiah ;  only  one  or  two  men  loved  me  for  my  real 
human  self,  but  there  were  some  affectionate  ladies,  with 
one  of  whom,  Mary  of  Magdala,  my  relations  were  tender 
and  intimate.  Mary  of  Bethany  anointed  me  at  the  table 
as  if  I  were  a  king,  but  what  I  prized  were  her  tears  and 
kisses.  She,  too,  had  a  heart,  and  loved  me." 

"  And  the  tears,"  I  said,  "  were  they  not  then  simply 
penitential?" 

"  Not  at  all." 

Then  I  repeated  the  words  preserved  from  the  sup- 
pressed Gospel:  "The  disciples  say,  'Where  wilt  thou 
that  we  prepare  for  the  passover  to  eat?'  Jesus  an- 
swered, '  Have  I  desired  to  eat  this  flesh,  the  passover, 
with  you  ? '  " 

Through  the  darkness  came  the  words :  "  Nothing  sac- 
rificial could  I  tolerate,  nor  could  I  participate  in  a 
memorial  feast  based  upon  the  wild  and  guilty  supersti- 
tion of  an  angel  killing  one  in  every  Egyptian  home,  and 
passing  over  the  homes  of  Israelites.  My  little  circle  of 
friends  had  been  accustomed  to  the  feast,  long  become 
merry,  and  I  invited  them  to  a  wine-supper  where  we 
enjoyed  ourselves.  It  was  quite  a  simple  affair." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

ADDENDA   1905,  1906. 

THE  Oxford  scholars  engaged  in  the  Exploration  of 
Egypt,  principally  Dr.  Bernard  Grenfell  of  Queen's 
College,  and  Dr.  Arthur  Hunt  of  Lincoln  College,  were 
rewarded  in  1897  by  the  discovery  on  the  site  of  Oxy- 
rhynchus,  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  ancient  Egypt,  of  a 
page  from  a  book  containing  some  Sayings  ascribed  to 
Jesus.  In  1903  their  search  was  renewed  with  even 
greater  success.  These  gentlemen  have  edited  the  papyri 
in  a  pamphlet  of  45  pages,  published  for  the  Egypt  Ex- 
ploration Fund  in  1904,  with  facsimiles  of  the  inscriptions 
and  English  translations.  From  these  I  cite  certain  pas- 
sages that  impress  me  as  presenting  in  a  reflected  way, 
though  sometimes  refracted,  genuine  utterances  of  Jesus. 
In  reading  the  New  Testament  and  these  writings  from 
the  early  centuries  of  our  era  it  is  important  to  remember 
that  classical  Greek  had  been  a  good  deal  modified.  The 
word  basileia,  kingdom,  for  instance,  had  become  very 
elastic  and  represented  any  kind  of  sway,  so  that  the 
Cromwellians  were  not  far  wrong  when  they  prayed, 
"  Thy  Commonwealth  come !  " 
One  of  these  sayings  is :  — 

Jesus  said,  Thou  nearest  with  one  ear,  but  the  other 
thou  hast  closed. 

Still  more  striking  is  the  following :  — 

Jesus    said,    Wherever  there   are   two,  they  are   not 
without  God,  and  wherever  there  is  one  alone,  I  say,  I  am 


SAYINGS  ASCRIBED   TO   JESUS          383 

with  him.  Raise  the  stone,  and  there  thou  shalt  find  me : 
cleave  the  wood,  and  there  am  I. 

Does  this  mean  that  God  is  simply  a  collectivist  term 
and  conception,  and  that  Jesus  represents  the  interior 
individual  mind?  Also  that  he  is  found  in  the  heart  of 
him  who  has  done  hard  work? 

One  of  the  fragments  shows  that  in  what  Jesus  said 
about  the  clothing  of  the  lilies,  and  that  "  the  life  is  more 
than  the  food,  and  the  body  more  than  raiment,"  he  uttered 
something  too  startling  to  be  canonically  reproduced :  — 

Who  could  add  to  your  stature  ?  He  himself  will  give 
you  your  garment.  His  disciples  say  unto  him,  when  wilt 
thou  be  manifest  to  us,  and  when  shall  we  see  thee  ?  He 
said,  When  ye  shall  be  stripped  and  not  be  ashamed  ? * 

The  longest  of  the  Sayings  is  considerably  broken,  and 
in  giving  it  as  conjecturally  made  out  by  Grenfell  and 
Hunt  I  must  express  grave  misgivings  about  the  words 
they  have  supplied  paranthetically  :  — 

Jesus  saith,  (Ye  ask  ?  who  are  these)  that  draw  us 
(to  the  kingdom,  if)  the  kingdom  is  in  Heaven  ?  .  .  .  the 
fowls  of  the  air,  and  all  beasts  that  are  under  the  earth 
or  upon  the  earth,  and  the  fishes  of  the  sea,  (these  are 
they  which  draw)  you,  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is 

1  On  this  saying  may  be  based  a  passage  from  an  early  Gospel  according 
to  the  Egyptians  referred  to  by  Clement  of  Alexandria.  It  is  quoted  by 
the  Oxford  editors  and  suggests  the  process  by  which  the  celibacy  of  priest 
and  nun  was  developed  :  — 

Salome  asked  how  long  death  would  prevail.  The  Lord  said,  So  long  as 
ye  women  bear  children.  For  I  have  come  to  destroy  the  works  of  the 
female.  And  Salome  said  to  him,  Did  I  therefore  well  in  bearing  no  chil- 
dren ?  The  Lord  answered  and  said,  Eat  every  herb,  but  eat  not  that  which 
is  bitterness.  When  Salome  asked  when  those  things  about  which  she 
questioned  should  be  made  known,  the  Lord  said,  When  ye  trample  upon 
the  garment  of  shame  ;  when  the  two  become  one,  and  the  male  with  the 
female  neither  male  nor  female. 


384  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

within  you  ;  and  whoever  shall  know  himself  shall  find  it. 
(Strive  therefore?)  to  know  yourselves,  and  ye  shall  be 
aware  that  ye  are  the  sons  of  the  (almighty  ?)  Father ; 
(and  ?)  ye  shall  know  that  ye  are  in  (the  city  of  God  ?) 
and  ye  are  (the  city?). 

There  is  a  notable  absence  from  most  of  these  newly 
discovered  fragments  of  things  post-resurrectional,  and  in 
them  Jesus  appears  as  an  unworldly  man  of  the  world, 
original  and  witty,  philosophical  and  profound,  looking 
to  the  clearing  away  of  oppressive  prejudices  rather  than 
to  any  Utopia.  In  the  second  Epistle  of  Clement  it  is 
said  that  when  Jesus  was  asked  when  his  kingdom  should 
come,  he  replied,  "When  the  two  shall  be  one,  and  the 
outside  as  the  inside,  and  the  male  with  the  female 
neither  male  nor  female."  This  appears  to  be  a  humorous 
way  of  saying  Never. 

I  have  little  doubt  that  if  these  admirable  Oxford 
scholars  were  permitted  the  free  exploration  of  the  Vati- 
can library,  and  a  few  other  guarded  collections,  they 
would  find  copies  of  the  Aramaic  and  other  lost  Gospels. 
Meanwhile  they  may  take  to  heart  more  literally  than  the 
rest  of  us  two  of  the  Sayings  they  have  discovered :  — 

Jesus  saith,  Everything  that  is  not  before  thy  face  and 
that  which  is  hidden  from  thee  shall  be  revealed  to  thee. 
For  there  is  nothing  hidden  which  shall  not  be  made 
manifest,  nor  buried  which  shall  not  be  raised. 

Jesus  saith,  let  not  him  who  seeks  .  .  .  until  he 
finds,  and  when  he  finds  he  shall  be  astonished ;  aston- 
ished he  shall  reach  the  kingdom,  and  having  reached 
the  kingdom  he  shall  rest. 

"  He  who  knows  only  one  religion  knows  none."  This 
fine  generalization  of  Max  Miiller  I  often  recalled  in  the 
East,  but  oftener  since  my  return.  The  oriental  swaddling- 


ARCHBISHOP   MANNING  385 

bands  pressed  to  my  eyes,  I  found  that  I  had  not  really 
interpreted  the  religions  around  me  at  home,  —  in  America 
and  Europe,  —  and  my  little  excursions,  and  my  records 
of  former  excursions  reread,  were  found  to  be  continua- 
tions of  my  pilgrimage  to  the  Wise  Men  of  the  East.  The 
star  that  drew  me  thither  had  taken  a  purely  human  face, 
and  when  it  led  me  back  westward  I  could  see  in  Christian 
sects  not  their  creeds  but  solely  the  extent  to  which  that 
human  face  was  reflected  in  them. 

Archbishop  Manning  gave  in  London  a  lecture  on 
"  Progress,"  which  interested  me  a  good  deal.  I  had  a 
pleasant  feeling  towards  Manning  because,  when  he  was 
trying  to  have  fountains  provided  throughout  London,  so 
that  people  should  not  be  driven  into  the  liquor  shops  by 
sheer  thirst,  he  invited  all  the  ministers  in  the  city  to 
meet  him  at  the  Archbishop's  palace  (plain  as  a  Quaker 
meeting-house),  and  did  not  exclude  even  such  a  test  of 
tolerance  as  myself.  Not  many  ministers  attended  the 
assembly  in  the  palace,  but  I  did,  and  was  pleased  by  the 
earnestness  of  Manning  in  the  matter. 

I  never  heard  Manning  preach,  but  in  his  lecture  he 
made  no  effort  at  eloquence.  His  tall,  thin  form  often 
moved  backward  and  forward,  but  his  face  did  not  change, 
nor  his  voice,  which  was  not  entirely  agreeable.  His  aim 
was  simply  to  make  a  clear  statement,  and  that  it  should 
be  heard  in  every  part  of  the  hall.  He  began  by  relating 
as  serious  history  a  legend  of  Pope  Hildebrand's  boyhood. 
His  father  was  a  wood-cutter,  and  once  when  the  lad  was 
cutting  a  tree  the  flying  chips  shaped  themselves  into  let- 
ters and  into  this  sentence :  Regnabit  ex  mare  ad  mare. 
It  was  the  prophetic  sign  of  his  destiny — to  reign  from 
sea  to  sea  —  and  steadily  fulfilled.  That,  declared  the 
Archbishop,  was  progress,  and  all  progress  means  sim- 


386  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

ply  the  fulfilment  of  the  pointings  of  Providence.  That 
masses  of  people  and  their  leaders  should  pursue  their  in- 
terests and  follow  their  ambitions  was  natural,  but  not 
progress ;  it  might  indeed  be  retrogression.  It  was  a  sug- 
gestive line  of  thought,  but  it  affected  me  strangely  that 
a  man  should  be  trained  amid  the  modern  culture  and  sci- 
ence of  England  to  find  the  salient  example  of  the  world's 
progress  in  the  development  of  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Church — visibly  crumbling  under  the  Archbishop's  eyes. 

The  regime  Hildebrand  of  centuries  having  terminated, 
and  the  Catholic  Church  having  been  set  on  the  way  of 
depending  on  its  merits,  wherefore  the  hatred  of  it?  Was 
not  this  sincere  Archbishop,  whose  every  physical  and 
mental  trait  represented  a  distinct  individual  evolution, 
—  was  he  not  a  nobler  figure  than  any  conventionalized 
Protestant  ?  At  any  rate,  he  had  individuality  enough  to 
make  his  pilgrim-progress  from  his  inherited  to  his  genu- 
ine church. 

My  belief  is  that  the  persistent  animosity  against  the 
Catholic  Church  in  England  and  America  is  a  Protestant 
heritage  from  Hildebrandism.  Protestantism,  having 
dropped  the  individual  man  from  the  cross,  has  made  it 
the  ensign  of  the  most  powerful  race,  and  vowed  that  it 
shall  reign  from  sea  to  sea.  Trade  travels  with  it,  and 
pride  of  empire.  The  crucifix  bars  the  way  of  the  cross 
in  many  regions,  and  hatred  of  it  is  fostered  in  the  demo- 
cracy by  constant  and  vivid  descriptions  of  papal  oppres- 
sions that  have  long  ceased.  It  is  terrible  to  think  of  the 
brutal  disregard  by  the  Protestant  Hildebrand  of  all  the 
tenderness  and  happiness  intertwined  with  the  ancient 
religions,  and  of  the  cost  to  the  destroyers.  When  the 
cross  reigns  from  sea  to  sea  those  who  win  that  victory 
will  have  meanwhile  become  werewolves. 


CONGRESS  OF  FREETHINKERS          387 

In  September,  1904,  I  was  requested  by  the  American 
United  Secularist  Societies  to  represent  them  at  the  Con- 
gress of  Freethinkers  at  Rome,  and  by  the  Committee 
of  that  International  Congress  I  was  requested  to  give  be- 
fore it  an  address  on  "  Science  and  Dogma."  My  address 
was  carefully  translated  into  French  in  Paris,  and  part  of 
it  read  to  the  Congress  by  my  friend,  John  M.  Robertson, 
M.  P.,  —  my  successor  at  South  Place  Chapel,  —  as  I  could 
not  trust  my  French  pronunciation  nor  my  ability  to  deal 
with  a  crowd  of  nearly  two  thousand  in  the  large  hall 
provided  for  us  by  the  Italian  government.  I  had  been 
especially  warned  by  the  fate  of  Haeckel,  from  whose 
large  form  sounds  a  feeble  voice,  and  whose  carefully 
prepared  German  speech  was  heard  by  few  except  those 
on  the  platform.  The  managers  demanded  that  I  should 
deliver  an  address  in  English,  which  I  did ;  but  it  speedily 
became  plain  that  the  delegates  from  France,  Italy,  Spain, 
and  most  of  those  from  Switzerland,  had  come  simply  for 
a  demonstration  in  favour  of  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State.  The  careful  studies  of  Haeckel  and  Robertson, 
and  of  the  eloquent  Chicago  minister  Mangasarian,  like 
my  discourse  on  "Science  and  Dogma,"  had  to  find  their 
way  into  print  as  they  could.  The  Church  and  State 
issue  brought  into  play  a  party  of  Anarchists  who  wished 
to  make  their  cause  a  rider  on  both  free  thought  and 
separation.  The  Anarchists,  however,  were  inferior  in 
numbers  to  the  Socialists,  who  silenced  them  and  ulti- 
mately were  themselves  silenced  when  they  tried  to  utilize 
the  Congress  for  their  propaganda. 

The  proceedings  of  the  Congress,  daily  reported  in  a 
Catholic  journal  in  a  way  fittest  to  horrify  the  Pope,  cul- 
minated in  a  procession  with  banners  to  the  monument  of 
Bruno.  My  friend  Robertson  and  myself  did  not  march 


388  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

with  the  procession,  as  we  desired  to  see  several  collec- 
tions, especially  the  Lateran,  which  we  had  been  officially 
informed  would  be  opened  that  day.  But  when  we  arrived 
at  the  door  we  found  it  closed.  We  managed  to  summon 
the  janitor  inside,  who  opened  the  little  wicket  and  asked 
in  Italian  if  we  were  pilgrims, — there  being  at  the  time  a 
pilgrimage  from  some  country  in  the  city.  Robertson  said, 
"No,"  and  imprudently  showed  our  official  ticket  of  ad- 
mission to  all  such  places.  The  wicket-slide  was  sharply 
closed  in  our  faces,  and  we  went  off  feeling  that  we  had 
been  consigned  to  Gehenna  by  order  of  the  vicar  of  Christ. 

There  was  little  inconvenience  in  this  exclusion  to  my- 
self personally,  for  I  had  repeatedly  explored  Rome,  but 
Robertson  had  not,  and  we  had  to  soothe  ourselves  with 
the  satisfaction  of  having  celebrated  the  burning  of  Bruno 
by  a  little  martyrdom  of  our  own.  There  was  some  ab- 
surdity in  my  own  case,  as  I  had  been  the  only  member  of 
the  Congress  who  had  warned  the  French,  in  my  English 
speech,  that  after  they  had  swept  and  garnished  their  house, 
before  the  mind  of  the  masses  was  swept  clear  of  super- 
stitions, they  would  be  likely  to  find  their  house  entered 
by  a  combination  of  sects  like  that  virtually  established 
in  America,  and  their  last  case  be  worse  than  the  first. 

One  may  hope,  that  now,  when  the  political  issue  with 
Papacy  is  out  of  the  arena  in  France,  the  many  men  and 
women  of  genius  in  that  nation  will  be  able  to  recognize 
more  clearly  the  fine  elements  potential  in  their  system,  as 
they  are  recognized  by  a  good  many  foreign  rationalists 
who  have  never  had  cause  for  concern  about  the  Pope. 
None  of  us,  I  suppose,  who  have  been  brought  up  under 
the  paralyzing  Sabbaths,  the  horrible  dogmas,  the  undeco- 
rated  church  walls,  and  the  unlovely  deities  of  Protestant 
countries,  have  visited  France  without  envying  the  people 


CHRISTIANITY  SECTARIAN  389 

their  free  and  happy  Sunday,  their  sweet  feminine  deity, 
their  churches  shining  with  saintly  forms,  their  Univer- 
salist  doctrine  of  Purgatory.  As  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  the  people  generally  will  be  transformed  into  Renans 
and  Zolas,  were  it  not  well  that  the  great  scholars  and 
writers  of  France  should  recognize  that  the  disestablish- 
ment of  a  world  of  religious  usages  and  habits  evolved 
through  many  ages  is  impossible,  but  that  it  is  not  im- 
possible by  sympathetic  art  to  cultivate  the  good  seeds 
in  any  system.  It  is  by  human  art  that  briers  have  been 
changed  to  roses  and  these  to  many-leaved  roses,  and 
finally  to  thornless  roses. 

A  good  many  years  of  my  ministerial  life  were  passed 
in  the  development  of  Theism  as  opposed  to  Christianity. 
This  was  largely  because  Christianity  as  a  system  is  sect- 
arian ;  it  demands  the  exclusion  of  all  other  religions  as 
untrue  and  needing  to  be  supplanted  and  destroyed.  The 
most  vulgar  and  ignorant  Christian  must  confront  a  Con- 
fucius, a  Zoroaster,  a  Buddha,  with,  so  to  say,  a  holier- 
than-thou  attitude.  The  work  of  social  humanization  is 
thereby  confined  to  Christendom  at  most,  and  the  system 
tends  to  degeneration  within  because  many  of  the  learned 
and  thinking  do  not  believe  in  it  and  withdraw  from  it, 
and  their  leaven  of  sweetness  and  light  is  lost.  My  belief 
is  that  the  real  faith  of  educated  Christendom  is  deism. 
That  which  so  many  of  us  contended  for  seems  to  be  in  a 
sense  triumphant,  but  for  myself  it  has  come  in  a  dogmatic 
form,  turning  to  ashes  on  my  lips. 

Christ  Jesus  at  any  rate  carries  flesh  and  blood  into  the 
godhead.  But  who  or  what  is  this  cosmic,  creative,  omni- 
potent, overruling  force  responsible  for  everything  in  this 
unlovable  universe?  A  French  author,  deeply  interested 
in  religion,  recently  travelled  about  France  interviewing 


390  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

people  of  every  rank  and  condition  about  their  religious 
ideas.  One  incident  was  an  exchange  of  question  and 
answer  with  a  poor  woman  hard  at  work.  "  May  I  ask 
what  is  your  idea  of  God  ?  "  "  He  has  never  shown  any 
concern  about  me,  and  I  don't  see  why  I  should  concern 
myself  about  him."  Probably  in  the  little  shanty  of  this 
humble  woman  there  looked  from  the  wall  a  holy  mother 
and  babe  or  a  crucified  friend,  and  the  simple  reply  she 
gave  held  in  it  the  secret  of  those  tender  divinities. 
So  did  mankind  turn  from  the  cold  and  distant  deities, 
unconcerned  about  their  agonies,  to  weak  and  sorrowful 
deities  compassionately  regarding  them.  They  love  him 
because  he  first  loved  them. 

The  primitive  Hindu  cosmic  Pantheism  broke  up  grad- 
ually into  multitudinous  divinities,  so  that  each  heart  and 
home  can  cherish  its  ideal  being. 

One  Sunday  evening  in  Paris  I  went  to  the  Gaiete- 
Montparnasse,  a  cheap  popular  theatre,  and  witnessed  a 
spectacular  revue  in  which  local  events  are  ridiculed  or 
celebrated  in  travesty,  tableau,  and  dance.  It  was  all 
pretty  and  musical,  but  a  succession  of  trivial  jests  and 
scenes,  some  of  them  audacious.  In  one  scene  a  repulsive 
tramp  appears  and  informs  the  gaily  dressed  commere 
and  compere  of  the  repairs  on  a  bridge  which  deprive  him 
of  his  only  sleeping  place  under  one  of  its  arches.  A 
wretched  woman  then  enters  and  complains  of  some  other 
repairs  which  deprived  her  of  her  chief  haunt.  The  com- 
pere and  commere  shrink  away  from  the  brazen  woman 
and  the  thief.  Then  slowly  moving  from  behind  the  scene 
appears  the  white-robed  Jesus.  The  vast  audience,  which 
had  been  roaring  with  laughter  and  at  times  calling  out 
to  favourite  figurantes,  suddenly,  on  the  appearance  of 


A  MONTPARNASSE   CHRIST  391 

**  Le  Christ, "  was  breathlessly  silent.  Jesus  — a  beautiful 
figure  —  standing  between  the  man  and  woman,  said  to 
the  audience,  "  These  are  the  people  you  create  by  your 
passions  and  your  selfishness,  and  then  shrink  from !  "  In 
this  grave  way  he  began,  with  low  voice,  but  gradually  his 
words  grew  passionate,  his  rebuke  of  inhumanity  pathetic 
and  almost  intoned.  Then  he  paused,  and  silently  moving 
towards  the  miserable  two  placed  his  arms  around  their 
necks  and  between  them  slowly  walked  off  the  stage.  That 
was  the  end.  The  curtain  fell.  But  the  crowd  would  not 
leave.  After  a  few  moments  of  awed  silence  they  shouted 
"  Le  Christ !  Le  Christ !  "  so  long  that  the  curtain  rose 
again  and  the  white-robed  figure  was  seen  again  gazing  on 
the  tramp  and  the  hag  —  who  at  first  had  been  brazen  but 
now  hung  their  heads. 

That  Jesus  from  a  Montparnasse  manger  was  not  for- 
gettable like  the  automatic  Christ  at  Oberammergau.  His 
raiment  and  parted  flowing  hair  were  just  artistically 
conventional  enough  for  recognition  by  all.  He  recited 
no  text,  made  no  allusion  to  the  sins  of  ancient  tribes, 
but  without  cant  spoke  to  the  Latin  Quarter,  and  touched 
every  heart  by  a  simple  appeal  for  justice  and  consider- 
ation for  all,  however  degraded. 

My  English  or  American  reader  may  feel  thajb  the  in- 
troduction of  Jesus  amid  such  frivolity  was  objectionable. 
But  my  companions  — John  and  Kate  Macdonald,  serious 
English  writers  —  felt  with  me  that  much  of  the  charm 
was  due  to  contrast  with  the  caricatures  and  sparkling 
audacities  of  the  revue.  The  aged  Faust  in  his  cloister, 
on  Easter  Day,  hears  the  young  people  outside  singing 
"  Christ  is  risen ! "  and  reflects  that  they  themselves  have 
risen,  —  out  of  their  hovels  and  workshops,  —  and  will 
have  the  holiday  frolic.  The  Gaiete-Montparnasse  was 


392  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

crowded  with  the  poor,  who  for  that  glad  Sunday  even- 
ing had  risen  from  the  dens  of  drudgery  and  seen  beauti- 
ful actresses  and  costumes,  and  heard  merry  songs,  and  it 
was  fitting  that  the  humanly  haloed  man  should  be  there 
to  remind  each  that  he  or  she  must  diffuse  gladness,  and 
press  no  thorns  on  any  head. 

Jesus  will  remain  in  the  popular  mind  and  share  its 
development,  whether  upward  or  downward.  The  "  bon 
sansculotte  "  of  the  Revolution,  bringing  not  peace  but  a 
sword,  the  carpenter,  the  communist,  the  hater  of  priest- 
hood, as  may  be  demanded  politically,  he  will  also  be 
ideally  the  holy  babe  in  every  mother's  arms,  the  bringer 
of  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  to  men,  the  saviour  of 
the  suffering  and  the  fallen.  The  higher  criticism  will 
never  reach  the  Jesus  of  popular  imagination ;  the  ideal 
has  struck  too  deep  —  it  has  been  adopted  by  the  law  of 
natural  selection.  We  can  hope  to  make  it  more  and 
more  a  source  of  justice,  kindness,  and  happiness. 

And  even  in  the  legends  that  seem  to  sceptics  cruel  the 
human  heart  often  hives  sweetness.  One  of  my  pilgrimages 
was  to  the  Salpetriere  hospital  in  Paris,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  a  specialist  in  epilepsy.  The  cases  in  which  I  was 
interested  were  those  of  which  I  had  heard  as  of  a  reli- 
gious type.  These  were  all  women  and  of  the  humble  class. 
One  I  saw,  as  we  passed  through  their  ward,  sitting  with 
uplifted  eyes  and  clasped  hands,  as  if  in  beatitude.  The 
most  interesting  case  was  that  of  a  comely  woman  who 
once  every  week  underwent  a  sort  of  crucifixion.  This  I 
did  not  witness,  but  the  physician  described  it  and  gave 
me  photographs  representing  every  stage  of  the  strange 
convulsion.  The  crucifixion  generally  lasted  three  hours, 
but  sometimes  nearly  all  day,  — and  during  the  time  the 
woman's  attitude  reproduced  closely  the  conventional  pie- 


AN   EPILEPTIC   CRUCIFIXION  393 

ture  of  the  churches.  Even  one  foot  was  placed  upon  the 
other  and  there  rigidly  remained  as  if  a  spike  were  driven 
through  the  two.  When  I  expressed  some  horror  that  the 
young  woman  should  undergo  such  agony  the  physician 
told  me  that  my  sympathy  was  misplaced.  When  she  first 
came  she  had  lain  in  the  rigid  attitude  over  four  hours, 
then  waked  as  from  a  dream,  and  exclaimed :  "  Where 
am  I  ?  I  have  been  so  happy  up  there !  It  was  so  beauti- 
ful ! "  When  asked  what  she  had  seen,  she  answered : 
"  I  was  in  heaven  amid  dazzling  light.  There  was  a  mea- 
dow and  little  St.  John  with  curly  sheep.  There  were  shin- 
ing diamonds,  pictures,  stars  of  all  colours.  Our  Lord  had 
long  chestnut  hair,  curling,  and  a  grand  red  beard.  He  is 
beautiful,  large,  strong,  all  in  gold.  The  holy  Virgin  is  in 
silver.  Our  Lord  spoke  to  me  but  I  cannot  remember  his 
words.  I  did  not  answer  him,  for  I  was  dumb." 

Such  was  the  bliss  going  on  four  hours  under  an  exterior 
of  protracted  agony.  In  such  a  type,  as  through  a  small 
crevice,  one  may  see,  down  a  long  vista  of  self-inflicted 
martyrdoms,  the  evolution  of  the  cult  of  pain  and  sorrow 
as  the  portal  to  paradise.  The  Hindu  saying  was,  "  Cool 
to  the  widow 's  breast  is  the  flame  of  her  husband's  pyre." 
But  the  widow-burning  has  ceased,  and  human  sacrifices 
seem  to  be  now  confined  to  Christendom.  "  Without  the 
shedding  of  blood  there  is  no  remission  of  sins  "  is  the 
consecration  of  all  violence,  —  war,  lynchings,  revolutions. 
In  social  life  educated  people  do  not  sacrifice  themselves 
really,  but  many  of  them  have  a  notion  that  "  crosses"  are 
good  for  the  masses  to  bear,  and  hence  the  weekly  epileptic 
crucifixion  of  England  and  America  on  the  Sabbath.1 

1  France,  too,  has  now  (1906)  adopted  a  hebdomaire  day  of  rest  from 
labour,  —  from  noon  Sunday  to  noon  Monday,  —  obligatory  on  employers. 
But  every  individual  is  free  to  work  or  play  during  that  time,  and  indeed 


394  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

If  some  of  the  violent  invective  ascribed  to  Christ  were 
genuine  there  would  be  some  ground  for  the  charge  of 
casting  out  devils  by  Beelzebub.  It  is  not,  however,  in 
language  but  in  spirit  and  method  that  the  possessed  and 
the  prepossessed  are  made  manifest.  I  had  a  talk  with 
the  famous  communist  Louise  Michel  after  her  return 
from  exile.  In  her  homely  and  stormbeaten  countenance 
the  look  of  the  beatified  epileptic  was  visible  in  perfect 
sweetness,  but  in  her  pleading  for  a  socialism  involving  the 
destruction  of  Christianity  the  crucified  epileptic  was  ap- 
parent. Kropotkin  and  Gorki,  in  Russia,  and  the  Social- 
ists everywhere  are  labouring  for  the  early  Christian  com- 
mune and  millennium  under  an  antichristian  flag.  They 
would  take  it  by  violence.  They  would  seat  on  the  throne 
of  Authority  a  multi-million-armed  despotism  of  masses 
under  which  individual  liberty  would  be  impossible.1 

the  main  object  of  the  new  law  is  to  enable  the  workpeople  to  enjoy  the 
Sunday  theatres  and  the  sports. 

1  A  French  journal,  referring  (1906)  to  the  so-called  "  revolution  "  in 
Russia,  said :  "  There  is  too  much  Tolstoi  in  the  Russian  masses  and  too 
much  Nietsche  in  their  masters."  Tolstoi,  while  rejecting  the  Apostles' 
Creed,  has  with  apostolic  fervour  insisted  on  the  primitive  communism 
which  is  the  corrollary  of  that  creed.  He  has  raised  before  the  ignorant 
masses  visions  which  cannot  be  realized  without  every  owner  of  property 
falling  like  Ananias  and  Sapphira.  It  is  doubtful  if  Tolstoi  himself  is  not 
keeping  back  part  of  the  price !  Being  a  man  of  peace  he  is  appalled  by 
the  violence  caused  by  his  retention  of  a  primitive  communism  which  is 
an  integral  part  of  the  miraculous  system  he  rejects.  The  great  writer 
has  sadly  misled  the  youth  everywhere  who  having  abandoned  old  creeds 
still  long  to  believe  in  something.  Among  the  instances  I  have  person- 
ally known  one  is  that  of  a  young  woman  who  belonged  to  South  Place 
Society,  London.  In  one  of  my  discourses  I  alluded  to  the  ancient  notion 
that  the  Holy  Ghost  never  pardoned.  The  sin  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira 
was  not,  as  Peter  explained,  keeping  their  property  but  "  lying  to  the 
Holy  Ghost."  The  woman  waited  for  me  at  the  chapel  door ;  she  was 
ready  to  give  up  the  whole  New  Testament  except  part  of  Acts  iv  and  v. 
She  believed  herself  a  freethinker,  but  that  Ananias  and  Sapphira  perished, 


HUMAN   SACRIFICE  395 

Guizot  described  himself  as  a  republican  who  believed 
in  no  republic.  "  The  republic  begins  with  Plato  and  ends 
in  the  policeman." 

This  policeman,  who  metes  out  to  every  citizen  his  mea- 
sure of  freedom  and  thraldom,  is  the  ignorant,  vulgar 
creature  of  the  many-headed  mediocrity  around  him.  He 
is  the  agent  of  the  aggregate  apehood  surviving  in  hu- 
man society  in  their  determination  that  no  variation  shall 
be  tolerated. 

Goldwin  Smith  fears  that  the  decay  of  faith  may  be 
followed  by  a  decline  of  morality,  but  my  old  friend  may 
depend  on  the  policeman  for  the  protection  of  the  virtues 
of  mediocrity,  especially  from  those  who  would  elevate  or 
liberalize  them.  The  grand  publicist  of  Toronto  belongs 
to  a  generation  whose  standard  of  morality  demanded 
self -truthfulness,  —  independence  in  thought,  speech,  and 
action,  —  justice,  —  protection  of  the  weak  and  lowly, — 
defence  of  peace.  It  is  buried  in  the  graves  of  Boers, 
Filipinos,  lynched  negroes, — beyond  the  reach  of  help  or 
harm. 

Were  my  public  ministry  to  begin  again,  I  should  as- 
sume that  the  old  theological  ideas  exist  no  more  in  minds 
capable  of  ideas,  but  make  for  the  nests  in  which  the  ova 
of  defunct  superstitions  are  bred  into  living  wrongs.  These 
nests  are  in  the  nerves,  in  timid  complaisance,  in  the  tor- 
por of  habit,  the  dread  of  isolation,  which  lead  the  leaders 
to  a  conformity  with  the  ritual  of  human  sacrifice.  For 
every  sacrifice  is  a  human  sacrifice,  —  be  it  sacrifice  of 
reason,  veracity,  moral  freedom,  pleasure,  happiness,  or 
of  the  senses,  —  and  implies  a  low  and  mean  conception 

justly  albeit  mysteriously,  for  the  unspeakable  crime  of  keeping  back 
money  pledged  to  their  commune.    She  never  entered  my  chapel  again. 


396  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

of  deity.  "  I  am  come  to  end  the  sacrifices,''  said  Jesus. 
They  are  offerings  to  Abaddon  —  to  Wrath.  Love  needs 
no  conciliation. 

Is  there  no  courageous  young  orator  in  the  orthodox 
pulpit  to  take  up  this  recovered  Gospel  of  Jesus  ?  It  does 
not  require  a  whip  of  small  cords,  —  there  are  no  animals 
to  be  driven  from  the  temple, — but  it  is  human  beings  who 
need  the  bringer  of  tidings  of  Joy.  The  other  day  a  young 
and  valiant  Presbyterian  in  America,  of  poetic  insight  and 
fine  culture,  Van  Dyke  by  name,  confronted  and  with  soft 
invincibility  led  out  of  that  Confession  a  dogma  of  pre- 
destination which  had  preyed  vampire-like  on  the  hearts 
of  parents  and  children  for  eight  generations.  A  revo- 
lution gentle  as  that  of  the  earth  passing  from  winter 
snows  to  summer  blossoms,  a  victory  in  which  the  wintry 
antagonists  are  equally  victorious,  is  a  shining  revelation 
in  our  dark  time  of  the  strength  that  dwells  in  a  right 
and  true  man  inspired  by  a  longing  to  save  human  souls 
from  real  and  present  torments. 

Now  let  a  chorus  be  heard  in  the  churches,  —  stop  the 
sacrifices !  Cease  to  immolate  one  seventh  of  human  time 
to  the  sabbath  idol !  Unbind  those  hearts  fettered  on  the 
marriage  altar  by  chains  forged  out  of  antiquated  notions 
of  divorce !  Stop  beating  that  child  with  a  rod  from  some 
ancient  proverb,  instructing  him  to  beat  others  smaller 
than  himself!  Cease  to  sacrifice  social  welfare  and  justice 
to  a  barbaric  text  enjoining  the  punishment  of  a  murderer 
by  imitating  him  !  Cease  to  call  love  and  generosity  "  self- 
sacrifice," —  sweep  all  these  sacrificial  savageries  out  of 
good  hearts  and  healthy  minds,  and  out  of  our  language, 
so  that  the  woman  may  find  fair  measures  of  honest  meal 
in  which  to  mingle  her  leaven  of  civilization  !  There  is  no 
other  hope  of  a  better  world. 


SUNSHINE   IN  RELIGION  397 

One  of  the  "  Cowley  Brothers  "  at  Poonah,  India,  — 
Mr.  Congreve,  —  is  reported  as  preaching  a  new  doctrine 
called  "  Self -anatomization."  The  indefiniteness  of  the 
phrase  is  definitive,  in  a  sense :  such  familiar  phrases  as 
44 self-examination,"  "self-denial,"  "self-sacrifice,"  could 
only  have  been  set  aside  for  some  new  variety  of  self- 
immolation.  But  after  all,  why  call  these  investments  of 
bodily  health  and  pleasure  for  splendid  futures,  —  why 
call  them  "  self -sacrifice  ?  "  The  ancient  Hindus  offered 
sacrifices  to  placate  one  or  another  adversary  of  man,  — 
or  what  may  be  plainly  called  devils, —  and  it  is  a  strange 
anomaly  that  learned  Anglicans  should  be  the  first  to 
carry  to  India  a  deity  demanding  sacrifices  of  human  hap- 
piness ! 

The  old  Methodist  aim  was  to  secure  the  bliss  of  souls, 
not  only  in  another  world  but  in  this,  and  we  used  to  con- 
sider every  sermon  good  that  elicited  joyful  exclamations. 
I  remember  preaching  on  the  anecdote  of  a  sceptic  who 
found  a  negro  woman  —  a  slave  —  singing  a  hymn  loudly 
while  at  work.  "  What  are  you  singing  for,  aunty  ?  "  he 
asked.  "  'Cause  Jesus  make  my  soul  happy."  "  Soul !  why 
you  have  n't  any  soul,  —  nobody  has."  "  Well,  massa,  Jesus 
make  my  body  happy." 

The  Christmas  carol  heard  in  childhood  —  the  angel's 
song  — 

Glad  tidings  of  great  joy  I  bring, 
To  you  aud  all  mankind  — 

gave  me  a  standard  of  every  religion ;  and  having  de- 
tached Catholicism  from  all  political  questions,  I  long 
ago  found  that  there  was  in  it  as  a  faith  more  sunshine 
than  in  the  average  Protestantism. 

Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  notes  in  Rome  reveal  himself 
as  a  figure  striking  as  any  novel  he  ever  wrote.  He  had 


398  MY   PILGRIMAGE 

been  so  crushed  by  the  cruelty  of  his  ancestors  in  New 
England  to  Quakers  and  "  witches  "  that,  except  at  his 
marriage,  he  could  never  be  persuaded  to  enter  a  church 
in  America.  In  Rome  he  sees  religion  illustrated  by  art 
and  laments  that  "  Protestantism  should  have  entirely  laid 
aside  this  method  of  appealing  to  the  religious  sentiment." 
He  seems  unable,  however,  to  recognize  the  Madonna. 
In  the  Sistine  Chapel  he  is  troubled  by  Michel  Angelo's 
Last  Judgment.  "  Above  sits  Jesus,  not  looking  in  the 
least  like  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  but,  with  uplifted  arm, 
denouncing  eternal  misery  on  those  whom  He  came  to 
save.  I  fear  I  am  myself  among  the  wicked,  for  I  found 
myself  inevitably  taking  their  part,  and  asking  for  at 
least  a  little  pity,  some  few  regrets,  and  not  such  a  stern, 
denunciatory  spirit  on  the  part  of  Him  who  had  thought 
us  worth  dying  for."  Hawthorne  is  consoled  at  Florence 
by  the  Jesus  of  Fra  Angelico's  "  Last  Judgment." 

"Above  sits  Jesus,  with  the  throng  of  blessed  saints 
around  Him,  and  a  flow  of  tender  and  powerful  love  in 
His  own  face,  that  ought  to  suffice  to  redeem  all  the 
damned,  and  convert  the  very  fiends,  and  quench  the  fires 
of  hell.  At  any  rate,  Fra  Angelico  had  a  higher  concep- 
tion of  his  Saviour  than  Michel  Angelo." 

New  England  Protestantism  had  not  only  deprived 
Hawthorne  —  its  first  imaginative  genius  —  of  the  picto- 
rial gospel  which  alone  could  move  him,  but  of  the  eyes 
for  interpreting  the  heart  of  that  gospel  when  at  fifty- 
eight  it  was  before  him.  For  the  soul  of  Michel  Angelo's 
Last  Judgment  is  not  the  wrathful  judge,  but  his  mother, 
full  of  compassion,  restraining  the  wrath.  Protestantism 
had  eliminated  the  Madonna  but  gradually  transferred 
her  compassionateness  to  Jesus,  whose  feminine  face  and 
hair  are  conventionalized  in  modern  pictures.  And  after 


THE   EVERYDAY  MADONNA  399 

looking  at  Fra  Angelico's  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment, 
blessing  those  on  his  right,  Hawthorne  does  not  doubt 
that  the  benignity  includes  the  damned.  That  was  quite 
in  accord  with  the  Jesus  of  New  England  Universalism, 
and  Hawthorne  had  no  eyes  to  see  or  even  look  for  the 
conpanion  picture  near  by  in  which  Fra  Angelico  painted 
Jesus  turning  to  the  wicked  on  the  left,  his  face  distorted 
with  anger. 

Critics  may  doubt  whether  Jesus  was  the  son  of  Mary, 
but  it  is  certain  that  the  gentle  and  loving  and  humane 
Jesus  is  the  child  of  the  Madonna.  It  is  she  who  has 
given  cultured  Protestantism  eyes  unable,  like  Haw- 
thorne's, to  see  a  Christ  crying,  "  Depart,  ye  cursed,  into 
everlasting  fire,"  and  "  He  that  hath  no  sword  let  him  sell 
his  cloak  and  buy  one,"  and  "  I  came  not  to  send  peace 
but  a  sword."  It  is  not  "  Higher  Criticism  "  that  has  di- 
vested Jesus  of  such  trappings  of  ancient  war-gods,  but 
the  Madonna. 

Calvin  and  Luther  and  John  Knox,  and  the  Puritans 
in  England  and  America,  instead  of  building  up  their 
revolution  against  Papacy  on  the  maternal  and  feminine 
principle,  restored  the  throne  of  the  man  of  war,  Jehovah, 
and  set  forth  the  Old  Testament  with  its  ferocities  as  the 
word  of  God.  The  innumerable  wars  followed  and  the 
nations  organized  by  and  for  bloodshed  and  conquest. 
Civilization  means  the  boundless  domination  over  the 
earth.  Those  who  regard  all  this  as  retrogression,  dete- 
rioration, and  the  spread  of  misery,  are  still  not  left  help- 
less and  hopeless.  For  woman,  with  her  leaven  of  love, 
her  beauty  and  charm,  is  still  in  the  earth,  and  by  her 
exclusion  from  armies,  navies,  political  functions  and  ec- 
clesiastical shams  is  enabled  to  build  beautiful  homes  and 
happy  societies.  These  Madonnas  of  everyday  life  have 


400  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

steadily  humanized  their  Christ,  and  in  the  cloister  as 
well  as  in  worldly  society  a  force  finer  than  that  called 
virile  is  steadily  evolved. 

I  visited  the  ancient  Convent  of  Marmoutier  near 
Tours,  mainly  to  see  the  graves  of  the  Seven  Sleepers.  I 
carried  a  good  note  of  introduction,  and  an  Irish  lady 
came  out  to  be  my  guide.  She  was  only  about  thirty,  but, 
as  I  understood,  the  abbess  of  the  English-speaking 
sisters  of  the  convent.  She  was  large  and  handsome, 
also  cheerful  and  very  intelligent.  When  we  had  passed 
through  the  beautiful  garden  and  grounds  to  the  grotto 
with  its  seven  coffin-shaped  open  and  empty  graves  she 
told  me  their  local  version  of  the  legend :  the  earlier  legend 
of  the  Seven  Sleepers  of  Ephesus  had  travelled  into  cen- 
tral France  in  the  form  of  pilgrims  from  the  East  who 
came  to  see  St.  Martin,  who  gave  them  the  sacrament, 
which  when  they  died  preserved  their  bodies  from  decay. 
I  was  careful  not  to  inquire  too  far,  but  looked  up  from 
the  empty  graves  to  the  active  woman  before  me,  who  — 
as  I  well  knew  by  two  summers  passed  in  that  neighbour- 
hood —  represented  a  Sisterhood  sleeplessly  watching  over 
all  sufferers  around  them.  I  spoke  to  her  of  the  noble 
services  rendered  by  her  ladies  two  or  three  years  before 
to  the  wounded  soldiers,  both  French  and  German,  and  to 
the  suffering  families  of  that  region.  She  gave  me  some 
account  of  the  terrible  trials  they  had  passed  through, 
with  the  rough  soldiers  passing  about  their  grounds,  but 
never  rough  enough,  it  seemed,  to  invade  the  asylum  of 
the  Sisterhood.  The  wounded  man,  however  rough,  was 
sacred  enough  to  be  nursed  by  these  refined  Samaritaines. 
The  abbess  appeared  beside  the  seven  graves  as  a  Sleep- 
ing  Beauty  very  wide  awake. 

It  was  from  the  threshold  of  Marmoutier  that  Peter 


JESUS  AND  MADONNA  401 

the  Hermit  made  his  appeal  for  the  Crusades,  and  in  the 
centuries  the  convent  had  become  famous  as  an  asylum 
of  Peace.  In  parting  from  this  attractive  lady  she  said, 
perhaps  with  reference  to  some  remark  of  mine  (which  I 
forget):  "  This  is  an  abode  of  happiness ;  every  hour 
brings  us  a  task  we  love,  and  we  continually  offer  thanks 
for  our  happiness  in  having  such  a  home,  and  such  con- 
stant opportunities  for  charity  and  helpfulness." 

The  belligerent  Christ  of  the  Crusades  has  no  part  in 
the  ideal  of  the  humble  and  the  cultured  Catholics  of  our 
time,  but  the  feminine  heart  cannot  adore  a  feminine 
divinity  alone.  One  finds  in  the  pious  meditations  of  Ma- 
dame Gruion,  Madame  Adorna,  and  other  devout  and 
refined  Catholic  women,  a  Jesus  and  Madonna  combined 
in  an  incarnation  of  blended  force  and  gentleness  to  which 
the  modern  Christian  rationalism  has  steadily  led  the 
pews,  if  not  yet  the  pulpits,  of  nearly  all  Protestant 
churches.  Many  years  ago  I  picked  up  somewhere  a  copy 
of  the  New  York  "  Catholic  World  "  (xx,  665)  and  copied 
from  it  an  anonymous  poem :  — 

Friend,  the  way  is  steep  and  lonely, 

Thickly  grows  the  rue ; 
All  around  are  shadows  only: 

May  I  walk  with  you  ? 

Not  too  near  —  for  oh!  your  going 

Is  upon  the  heights 
Where  the  airs  of  heaven  are  blowing 

Through  the  morning  lights. 

Dare  1  brush  the  dews  that  glisten 

All  about  your  feet  ? 
Can  1  listen  where  you  listen, 

Meet  the  sights  you  meet  ? 


402  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

Not  too  far  —  I  faint  at  missing 

You  from  out  my  way  — 
Vain  is  then  the  glory  kissing 

All  the  peaks  of  day: 

Vain  are  all  the  laughing  showers 

Leading  on  the  Spring, 
All  the  Summer  green  and  flowers, 

All  the  birds  that  sing. 

At  your  side  my  way  is  clearest: 

Tell  me  I  may  stay! 
Not  too  far  —  and  yet,  my  dearest, 

Not  too  far  away. 

It  is  said  that  Jesus  in  a  crowd  once  paused  and  said, 
"  Who  touched  me  ?  "  Through  the  miraculous  veil  one 
may  discern  the  sensitive  man  who  could  distinguish  the 
lightest  caress  from  all  accidental  touches.  Amid  the 
multitudinous  throng  in  New  York  crying, "  Lord,  Lord," 
to  a  conventionalized  Jesus  there  may  be  recognized  in 
the  above  poem  one  who  really  touched  him.  I  feel  cer- 
tain that  it  is  the  song  of  a  Madonna  who  had  spiritually 
conceived  and  borne  and  exalted  above  herself,  but  not 
too  far,  a  Son  of  the  universal  motherhood.  For  her 
"  Friend  "  is  not  commonplace  nor  conventional,  but  an 
original  and  genuine  expression  of  that  force  which 
a  great  man  of  science,  W.  K.  Clifford,  enunciated  in  a 
lecture  in  London  which  filled  me  with  emotion  when  I 
heard  it,  and  in  which  my  old  age  now  finds  one  of  the 
few  contemporary  evangels  and  prophecies  which  survive 
my  many  vanished  illusions :  — 

In  this  principle  (evolution)  we  must  recognize  the 
mother  of  life,  and  especially  of  human  life,  powerful 
enough  to  subdue  the  elements,  and  yet  always  working 
gently  against  them;  biding  her  time  in  the  whole  ex- 


THE   MOTHER  TRIUMPHANT  403 

panse  of  heaven,  to  make  the  highest  cosmos  out  of  inor- 
ganic chaos ;  the  actor,  not  of  all  the  actions  of  living 
things,  but  only  of  the  good  actions ;  for  a  bad  action  is 
one  by  which  the  organism  tends  to  be  less  organic,  and 
acts  for  a  time  as  if  inorganic.  To  this  mother  of  life, 
personifying  herself  in  the  good  works  of  humanity,  it 
seems  to  me  we  may  fitly  address  a  splendid  hymn  of  Mr 
Swinburne's  ("Mater  Triumphalis")  :  — 

Mother  of  man's  time-travelling  generations, 
Breath  of  his  nostrils,  heart-blood  of  his  heart, 

God  above  all  Gods  worshipped  of  all  nations, 
Light  above  light,  law  beyond  law,  thou  art. 

Thy  face  is  as  a  sword  smiting  in  sunder 

Shadows  and  chains  and  dreams  and  iron  things; 

The  sea  is  dumb  before  thy  face,  the  thunder 
Silent,  the  skies  are  narrower  than  thy  wings. 

All  old  grey  histories  hiding  thy  clear  features, 
O  secret  spirit  and  sovereign,  all  men's  tales, 

Creeds  woven  of  men  thy  children  and  thy  creatures, 
They  have  woven  for  vestures  of  thee  and  for  veils. 

Thine  hands,  without  election  or  exemption, 

Feed  all  men  fainting  from  false  peace  or  strife, 

O  thou,  the  resurrection  and  redemption, 

The  godhead,  and  the  manhood,  and  the  life ! 

In  the  recently  discovered  Gospel  of  Peter  it  is  said 
that  Jesus  in  dying  cried,  "  My  power,  my  power,  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  ? "  It  is  not  likely,  as  Professor 
Estlin  Carpenter  says  in  his  able  work  on  the  Synoptics, 
that  any  disciple  would  invent  such  a  cry  of  despair  from 
his  dying  master.  There  are  indeed  various  indications  in 
the  New  Testament  that  Jesus  tried  to  escape  from  the 
mobs,  and  the  termination  of  his  life  when  it  was  just 
unfolding  must  have  been  bitter  indeed.  But  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  his  last  days  were  not  haunted  by  any  fear 


404  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

that  his  ghost  would  appear  and  unsay  all  that  he  had 
taught.  For  it  is  certain  that  side  by  side  with  the  beau- 
tiful and  humane  teachings  which  I  have  quoted,  others 
are  ascribed  to  him  which  deny  every  one  of  them.  His 
"  power "  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  deified  forces  of 
predatory  Nature,  and  the  still  small  voice  of  Jesus  is 
drowned  by  the  dogmas  born  of  volcano  and  lightnings. 

It  is  terrible  to  consider  how  hard  it  is  to  nurse  any 
brierless  rose  of  religious  faith  in  a  world  where  the  cruel 
phenomena  of  hereditary  diseases,  the  fatal  and  never- 
ending  consequences  of  even  small  errors,  the  indiscrim- 
inate sufferings  of  both  innocent  and  guilty,  proclaim 
so  loudly  a  creative  Demiurgos.  An  eminent  Unitarian 
preacher,  teaching  unweariedly  that  God  is  Love,  re- 
lates the  following  incident :  "  One  day  a  lady  in  Boston 
came  to  me,  a  member  of  the  Old  South  Church,  one  of 
the  finest  and  richest  churches  in  Boston.  She  belonged 
to  the  best  society.  She  was  cultivated  and  intelligent ; 
and  she  sat  down  beside  me,  and  said,  '  Mr.  Savage,  won't 
you  tell  me  what  you  believe  ?  '  I  told  her.  When  I  was 
through,  she  said,  '  I  would  give  the  world  if  I  dared  to 
believe  as  you  do.'  Then  she  added,  '  How  do  I  know, 
after  all,  how  can  I  be  sure,  that  there  is  no  such  God  in 
the  universe  as  I  have  been  taught  to  believe  in  ?  and  if 
there  is,  I  am  afraid  of  him.' " 

The  ages  of  Christian  theology  had  brought  this  Boston 
lady  to  the  mental  condition  of  some  of  the  aboriginal 
tribes  of  India.  The  Santals,  who  know  not  distinctions 
of  caste  nor  polygamy,  and  respect  women,  cannot,  says 
Sir  William  Hunter,  imagine  "  one  omnipotent  and  bene- 
ficent deity,  who  watches  over  mankind."  A  Santal  said 
to  an  eloquent  missionary  who  had  discoursed  of  the  Chris- 
tian God,  "  What  if  that  Strong  One  should  eat  me  ?  " 


SIR  WILLIAM   W   HUNTER 


A  HUMANIZED  SAINT  405 

My  friend  Henri  Monod  of  Paris  told  me  of  a  little 
girl  who  said  to  her  mother,  —  "  Mamma,  if  the  good  God 
and  the  devil  were  both  dead  I  would  feel  more  tranquil." 
She  was  brought  up  a  Catholic,  and  her  case  —  as  she  was 
still  taught  to  believe  in  a  devil  —  was  happier  than  the 
Boston  lady  trained  to  believe  in  one  single  omnipotent 
creator  responsible  for  all  the  evils  and  agonies  proceed- 
ing from  his  creation.  Of  such  a  dread  power  why  should 
a  sweet  and  tender  woman  not  be  afraid? 

From  such  deities  Buddha  and  Confucius  and  Zoroaster 
and  Jesus  led  their  friends,  and  in  America  Emerson  led 
the  descendants  of  the  terrible  Calvinist  deity  in  the  same 
direction  by  calling  them  to  the  religion  of  their  own 
hearts.  When  I  was  studying  in  the  Unitarian  Divinity 
School,  Cambridge  (Massachusetts),  I  occasionally  went 
to  preach  in  the  temporarily  vacant  Unitarian  pulpit  at 
Plymouth.  The  church  was  the  ancient  foundation  of  the 
Pilgrims,  and  I  never  entered  it  without  a  feeling  of  ex- 
altation. The  prickly  Calvinistic  cactus  planted  there  in 
1621  had  then  budded  into  the  beautiful  faith  of  Channing 
and  was  finally  flowering  in  the  idealism  of  Emerson! 
Emerson  had  married  a  Plymouth  lady  and  had  warm 
friends  there ;  among  these  being  Mrs.  Lucia  Briggs,  who 
stands  in  my  memory  as  a  humanized  saint,  —  sympathetic 
and  individual,  serene  and  smiling,  cultured  and  simple. 
"  She  is  one  of  the  precious  persons,"  said  Emerson,  when 
I  spoke  of  her,  but  I  did  not  know  then  that  he  had  been 
an  influence  in  her  life.  In  a  book  written  by  her  son, 
"  Routine  and  Ideals,"  appears  a  letter  of  Emerson  to 
little  Lucia  at  Plymouth,  aged  thirteen,  which  contains 
a  paragraph  not  surpassed  by  any  saying  of  the  haloed 
sages :  — 


406  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

I  would  gladly  know  what  books  Lucia  likes  to  read 
when  nobody  advises  her,  and  most  of  all  what  her 
thoughts  are  when  she  walks  alone  or  sits  alone.  For, 
though  I  know  that  Lucia  is  the  happiest  of  girls  in  hav- 
ing in  her  sister  so  wise  and  kind  a  guide,  yet  even  her  aid 
must  stop  when  she  has  put  the  book  before  you ;  neither 
sister  nor  brother  nor  mother  nor  father  can  think  for  us  ; 
in  the  little  private  chapel  of  your  own  mind  none  but  you 
can  know  the  happy  thoughts  that  follow  each  other,  the 
beautiful  affections  that  spring  there,  the  little  silent  hymns 
that  are  sung  there  at  morning  and  at  evening.  And  I 
hope  that  every  sun  that  shines,  every  star  that  rises,  every 
wind  that  blows  upon  you  will  only  bring  you  better 
thoughts  and  sweeter  music. 

Here,  then,  I  find  the  inscription  on  my  final  shrine. 
After  voyaging  around  the  world  and  visiting  many  tem- 
ples I  come  at  last  to  the  "  little  private  chapel  in  my  own 
mind,"  where  the  ideals  are  small  but  intimate  and  the 
services  lowly  but  loving. 

Many  years  ago  an  American  spoke  to  me  after  my  dis- 
course at  South  Place  Chapel,  London,  and  asked  me  to 
call  on  him  at  his  hotel.  He  was  gentlemanly  and  attrac- 
tive, and  invited  me  so  earnestly  that  I  complied.  It  was 
a  fashionable  hotel  and  he  received  me  in  a  fine  large 
room.  A  table  was  covered  with  large  drawings  and  de- 
signs of  an  invention  this  American  had  made  for  tunnel- 
ling mountains.  He  showed  me  clearly  that  a  mountain 
could  be  perforated  with  far  less  cost  in  money,  time,  and 
labour,  and  he  enumerated  the  mountain  chains  still  sep- 
arating nations  and  peoples,  impeding  commerce  and 
civilization,  rendering  impossible  the  "  federation  of  the 
world."  Some  London  engineers  and  men  of  wealth  were 
interested  in  his  invention,  and  a  syndicate  would  be 
formed.  He  did  not  require  any  help  from  me,  but  having 
listened  to  my  discourse  thought  I  would  be  interested  in 


TWO  INVENTORS  407 

his  invention.  I  was  indeed  interested,  and  hoped  to  hear 
from  him  again,  but  did  not,  and  the  matter  passed  from 
my  mind. 

Years  later  I  was  accosted  by  a  stranger  near  King's 
Cross,  a  haggard  man  in  threadbare  coat,  who  said  plea- 
santly, "  You  do  not  remember  me,  but  you  came  to  see 
me  once  at  Charing  Cross  Hotel."  "  Ah,  yes,  you  had  an 
invention  of  some  kind,  what  came  of  it?"  "Well,  the 
capitalists  would  not  go  into  it,  but  I  have  another  inven- 
tion now,  —  I  wish  you  would  let  me  show  it  to  you."  "  I 
can  go  now."  I  followed  the  inventor  to  a  poor  lodging- 
house  near  by,  felt  my  way  through  the  narrow  passages 
and  up  the  creaking  stairways  to  a  dingy  little  attic,  with 
cot  and  two  wooden  chairs.  There  he  showed  me  his  new 
invention,  —  a  little  machine  for  sharpening  knives  and 
forks. 

Pathetic  comedies  are  not  rare  in  London,  so  I  soon 
forgot  the  inventor.  I  never  saw  him  again  and  do  not 
remember  his  name,  but  in  later  years  think  of  him. 
Could  I  meet  him  to-day  I  would  take  that  man  by  the 
hand  and  say,  "  Brother,  we  are  in  the  same  case.  I  too 
started  out  with  my  invention  for  tunnelling  barriers 
between  races  and  nations  and  promoting  universal  peace 
and  fraternity ;  but  I  have  come  down  to  something  small, 
—  not  exactly  sharpening  knives  and  forks,  possibly  less 
useful.  I  am  now  content  if  I  can  win  a  smile  to  the  faces 
that  surround  me,  or  bring  a  little  cheer  to  homes  that 
look  to  me  for  help." 

As  I  write  this  in  the  happy  home  of  my  daughter  Mil- 
dred and  her  husband,  in  New  York,  the  midnight  chimes 
are  ringing  in  Christmas,  1905.  My  devoted  two  children 
and  children-in-law  do  all  that  affection  can  to  withdraw 
me  from  memories  of  the  bereavement  we  suffered  in  the 


408  MY  PILGRIMAGE 

death  of  their  mother  on  Christmas  day,  1897.  The  Christ- 
mas tree  is  dressed  for  the  little  children,  although  none 
of  us  believe  in  any  supernatural  birth.  The  human  Jesus 
is  with  us  in  human  kindness,  and  the  house  is  full  of 
the  odour  of  the  love  poured  out  from  our  little  alabaster 
boxes  to  gladden  the  hearts  that  surround  us. 

In  a  sentence  preserved  by  Hippolytus  from  a  lost  Gos- 
pel of  St.  Thomas,  Jesus  says,  "He  who  seeks  me  shall 
find  me  in  children  from  seven  years  old." 

In  a  newly  discovered  logia  Jesus  says,  "  I  stood  in  the 
midst  of  the  world  .  .  .  and  found  all  men  drunken,  and 
none  found  I  athirst  among  them,  and  my  soul  grieves 
over  the  sons  of  men  because  they  are  blind  in  the  hearts 
and  see  not "  —  The  rest  of  the  papyrus  is  broken.  My 
conjecture  is  that  Jesus  felt  that  his  efforts  to  reform 
mankind  had  failed,  and  that  none  were  eager  for  the 
beatitude,  "Happy  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  for 
justice."  (Even  now  Christians  thirst  so  little  for  justice 
that  they  hide  it  under  the  mongrel  "  righteousness  "  !) 

But  with  Jesus  to  the  last  were  the  women ;  and  shall 
I  forget  that  sweetest  of  all  parables,  the  woman  hiding 
her  leaven  in  the  measures  of  meal  till  the  whole  was 
raised?  So  long  as  the  earth  still  produces  lovely  and 
loving  women,  one  cannot  despair  of  the  happier  world, 
that  is  not  seen  but  is  within  every  true  and  loving  heart. 
In  all  the  world  loving  women  are  bowing  down  before 
deities  that  seem  to  me  loveless  and  heartless,  but  those 
hearts  are  still  singing,  "  Jesus,  lover  of  my  soul."  Deep 
beneath  those  maternal  breasts  is  a  potent  alchemy  like 
that  which  in  the  flower  turns  the  foulest  mud  and  slime 
at  its  root  into  purity  and  fragrance  of  lily  and  rose.  It  is 
said  with  some  truth  that  the  hand  that  rocks  the  cradle 
rules  the  world ;  but  it  is  not  a  visible  rule,  —  not  a  rule 


THE   LEAVEN  OF  HAPPINESS  409 

of  which  men  may  say,  Lo  here !  lo  there !  Were  woman 
to  be  withdrawn  by  public  ambition  from  her  realm  of 
beauty  and  lowliness,  she  would  be  added  to  the  measures 
of  meal,  but  where  would  be  the  leaven  ? 

O  sisters,  our  sorest  need  is  to  end  the  Wrath  by  end- 
ing the  sacrifices,  as  Jesus  said,  —  like  him  to  clear  the 
temple  of  every  victim.  But  that  leaven,  for  which  we 
must  also  with  Jesus  look  to  woman  —  constitutionally 
deriving  happiness  from  giving  rather  than  receiving  — 
can  reach  the  temple  best  by  being  hid  in  hearts  and 
homes. 


INDEX 


ABBOTT,  EDWIN  A.,  "  Kernel  and 
Husk,"  327. 

Adler,  Dr.  Felix,  191. 

Adyar,  Theosophic  centre,  196-203. 

Agassiz,  Alexander,  318. 

Agassiz,  Louis,  heresy  of,  318. 

Agues,  St.,  legend  of,  292. 

Agra,  the  Taj  at,  284,  285  ;  Akbar's 
palace  in,  286, 287 ;  beggars  in,  289. 

Akbar,  mausoleum  of,  286 ;  palace  of, 
287. 

Aladdin's  tower,  282. 

Albany,  Australia,  settlement  of,  99, 
100;  primitive  laws,  100;  natives, 
100-103. 

All,  Syed  Ameer,  author  and  barrister, 
252-254. 

Allahabad,  302-309 ;  number  of  Hindu 
Christians  in,  320. 

Ambapali  (or  Amrapali),  famous  cour- 
tesan, 268, 271 ;  and  Bimbisara,  274. 

Ananda,  legend  of,  368. 

Apocryphal  fables,  poetic,  1. 

Arabi,  Achmet,  exiled  in  Ceylon,  162- 
168. 

Arnold,  Sir  Edwin,  his  "Light  of 
Asia, "  127. 

Arunachalam,  Judge,  112 ;  wife  of,  113, 
114 ;  acts  as  cicerone,  114-119 ;  his 
"Luminous  Sleep,"  160. 

Asoka,  King,  261,  262 ;  pillars  of,  277, 
278,  284,  303,  308. 

Augustine,  St.,  364. 

Australia,  nomenclature,  73  ;  loyalty 
to  England,  73;  social  conventions, 
74  ;  "  antipodal "  insanity,  77 ;  gold 
fields,  77-80 ;  fauna  and  flora,  83-85 ; 
extinct  Thylacoleo,  94,  95;  colo- 
nial chauvinism,  97,  98 ;  west  coast 
names,  98, 99 ;  coast  natives,  100-103. 

Babar,  founder  of  the  Mogul  dynasty, 

286. 

Bacon,  Delia,  52, 53. 
Bain,  Professor  A.,  180. 
Balzac,  Honor6  de,  origin  of  "La  Peau 

de  Chagrin,"  171, 172. 
Benapani,  goddess  of  music,  299, 300. 
Benares,  the  Hindu  Jerusalem,  266  ; 

Monkey  Temple  at,  267 ;  story  con- 
nected with,  275,  276. 
Bengal,  women  of,  248 ;  houses,  248, 

249 ;  conference  of  religions,  249, 250 ; 

home  of  Dr.  Mitra,  250-252 ;  home  of 

Ameer  AH,  253. 
Benjamin,  Park,  "  Song  of  the  Strom- 

kerl,"  291. 


Besaut,  Mrs.  Anne,  and  Theosophy, 
205. 

Bhagavat  Gita,  282. 

Bhakti  (Faith),  religion  of,  335,  336. 

Bhurmoilla  (Holy  Stone),  257,  258. 

Bimbisara,  king  of  Magadha,  274. 

Blavatsky,  Madame,  96, 178 ;  entertain- 
ing but  uncultivated,  195;  at  home 
of,  196-203 ;  alleged  frauds,  205-213 ; 
mistakes  of,  256,  257. 

Bombay,  317-341. 

Botany  Bay,  95. 

Brahmanism,  and  Positivism,  219 ; 
priestly  rites,  220, 221. 

Brahmans,  called  "  Catholics,"  299. 

Brahmos,  Somaj,  218 ;  Sandharan,  218. 

Briggs,  Mrs.  Lucia,  405, 406. 

Bright,  Charles,  94. 

Bright,  John,  letter  from,  345-347. 

Broughton,  L.  P.  D.,  and  Theosophic 
impostures,  205-209. 

Brown,  W.  T.,  Theosophist,  197 ;  his 

•  meetings  with  Koothoomi,  202. 

Buddha,  temples  of,  116,  121, 122, 124, 
257-262 ;  Mala,  mother  of,  116 ;  tradi- 
tional birthplace,  120 ;  alms-bowl  of, 
120 ;  teachings  of,  121,  126,  131-136; 
sacred  Bo-tree,  124 ;  sacred  day  of, 
127 ;  "  The  Light  of  Asia  "  and,  127 ; 
Western  interest  in,  128 :  Siddhar- 
tha,the  real,  128, 129;  Earthward  Pil- 
grimage of,  129;  lotus  his  symbol, 
129 ;  his  plea  for  free  thought, 
131-133 ;  "  atheism  "  of,  135 ;  pessi- 
mistic philosophy  derived  from,  171 ; 
on  Truth,  172;  and  Juggenauth, 
181 ;  ancient  carol,  194 ;  and  Scho- 
penhauer, 250;  sacred  place  of, 
257, 258 ;  footprints  of,  260 ;  statue  of, 
in  South  Kensington  Museum,  260 ; 
religious  and  moral  sentiment  about, 
261,  262 ;  and  Ambapali,  268-271 ;  can- 
onized,  299. 

Buddhism,  new  missionary  movement, 
262 ;  a  missionary  religion,  298. 

Buddhist,  unworldliness  of,  108,  109 ; 
fables  and  parables,  109-111 ;  ven- 
erable priest,  116, 117, 122 ;  religious 
beliefs,  117, 118 ;  crime  rare  among, 
119;  religious  procession,  120; 
priestly  vestments,  121 ;  moral  tales, 
124,  125;  idea  of  salvation,  126; 
Christmas  among,  127  ;  Primate  of, 
130 ;  college  for,  130-134 ;  subtle  the- 
ology of,  135  ;  priests  celibate,  136 ; 
element  in  Jain  religion,  193 ;  "  Eso- 
teric Buddhism  »  by  Sinnett,  196 ; 


412 


INDEX 


"pansala,"  the  five  precepts,  204, 
205 ;  priests  claim  supernatural  fa- 
vour, 229 ;  miracle  play,  230  ;  tradi- 
tional sacred  place,  257. 
Burnouf,  Eugene,  his  opinion  on  site 
of  Vaisall,  268. 

Calcutta,  215 ;  Positivist  school  at,  218, 
219;  beautiful  temple  at,  219,  220; 
exposition,  223, 225 ;  print-shop,  225 ; 
Star  Theatre,  226-229 ;  Parsi  Thea- 
tre, 230-234 ;  circus  and  menagerie, 
234 ;  original  shrine  of  Kali,  235-237 ; 
yogis,  238-240 ;  street  beggars,  240 ; 
Kali's  image,  241 ;  Salvationists  in, 
243, 244 ;  a  prince's  dinner-party,  244. 
245. 

Campbellism,  in  Tasmania,  81,  82. 

Capel,  Monseigneur,  11. 

Carpenter,  Prof.  J.  Estlin,  403. 

Carus,  Dr.  Paul,  editor  of  "  The  Open 
Court,"  263. 

Caste,  incident  of,  281. 

Catholic  Church,  reason  for  the  per- 
sistent animosity  against,  386. 

Cayvau,  Georgie,  12. 

Ceylon,  peace-loving  natives,  108, 109; 
Buddhists,  108-112,  116, 117,  120,  121, 
122, 124,  127, 130-136 ;  Sinhalese,  112- 
116  ;  optimism  of  natives,  118, 126 ; 
misconceptions  of  Heber  and  others, 
119, 120, 136, 137 ;  crime  in,  119 ;  Bud- 
dha's birthplace,  120 ;  ancient  tem- 
ples, 120, 121, 124 ;  Christmas  in,  127 ; 
Buddhist  college,  130-134;  devil-dan- 
cers, 144-150 ;  serpent  worship,  146, 
147;  devil  exorcism,  151,  152;  no 
twilight  in,  152 ;  Nautch  dancers,  154- 
157  -,  Tamil  drama  of  "  Harischan- 
dra,"  157-159 ;  conjurers,  169,  170 ; 
great  turtle  of,  170 ;  simple  life  of 
Sinhalese,  171, 172. 

Chaitauya,  reviver  of  Vishnuism,  336, 
337. 

Christianity,  its  claims  and  its  results, 
193;  fundamental  difference  from 
oriental  religions,  214 ;  derived  ideas 
from  India,  295, 301 ;  sectarian,  389. 

"Christianity,"  collection  of  discourses 
by  C.,  353. 

Christians  of  St.  Thomas,  313. 

Civil  War,  effects  of,  in  Virginia,  24, 
25 ;  C.'s  expatriation  because  of,  25, 
26. 

Clark,  Hon.  A.  I.,  80. 

Clarke,  Marcus,  his  "  For  the  Term  of 
His  Natural  Life, "  80,  85. 

Clifford,  W.  K.,  quoted,  402. 

Coan,  Rev.  Titus,  pathetic  history  of, 
58. 

Cobbe,  Frances  Power,  190, 213 ;  strong- 
ly opposed  to  the  theatre,  334, 335. 

Colombo,  jeweller  of,  and  Bishop 
Heber,  119 ;  Christmas  in,  127 ;  hotels 
of,  143;  palatial  bungalows  at,  143, 
153;  devil-dancers,  144-150;  street 
jugglers,  169, 170. 


Colton,  J.  S.,  Positivist,  218. 

Columbus,  28. 

Con  way,  Hon.  Martin  F.,  25. 

Conway,  Moncure  D.,  Cincinnati  pas- 
torate, 2,  3;  "The  Earthward  Pil- 
grimage," 4, 5 ;  voyage  to  New  York, 
8-13 ;  meets  prominent  citizens,  15, 
16 ;  conception  of  patriotism,  16-18 ; 
appreciation  of  Ingersoll,  19-24;  post- 
bellum  conditions,  24, 25 ;  war  policy 
regretted,  25,  26 ;  "A  Necklace  of 
Stories,"  26,  27 ;  reflections  on  visit 
home,  27-30;  Virginia  historical 
pilgrimage,  30 ;  effects  of  war,  34-36 ; 
witch  hunt,  37 ;  visits  Judge  Hoadly, 
38-40 ;  visits  Utah,  40-45 ;  converses 
with  John  W.  Young,  41;  meets 
prominent  Mormons,  44, 45 ;  arrives 
m  San  Francisco,  47 ;  visits  China- 
town, 47,  48 ;  visits  friends  and  rela- 
tives, 49;  Shakespeare-Bacon  con- 
troversy, 51,  53;  in  Hawaii,  53-59; 
diversions  of  Pacific  voyage,  62-64;  in 
New  Zealand,  65, 66 ;  at  Melbourne, 
70-76 ;  visits  gold-fields,  77-80 ;  in  Tas- 
mania, 80-88;  Melbourne  lectures 
misunderstood,  89,  90 ;  Sydney  lec- 
tures, 91-94;  at  Botany  Bay,  95 ;  visits 
Albany,  99-104 ;  voyage  to  Ceylon, 
105 ;  a  Buddhist  friend,  109-111 ;  ex- 
pedition to  Kodyas  country,  ill,  112 ; 
entertained  by  Sinhalese,  112-114 ;  ad- 
monishes Buddhists,  115,116;  meets 
Subhuti,  116, 117 ;  visits  Khandy  tem- 
ple, 121, 122 ;  hears  Moslem  preacher, 
123, 124 ;  visits  Kellania  temple,  124 ; 
questions  Subhuti  about  mission- 
aries, 126  ;  spends  Christmas  in  Co- 
lombo, 127-130 ;  at  Buddhist  college, 
130-134;  conversation  with  priests, 
135, 136 ;  attends  international  church 
function,  139-142 ;  entertained  at  Cin- 
namon Gardens,  143;  sees  devil- 
dance,  144-150 ;  entertained  at  Swa- 
my  bungalow,  153-159 ;  sees  Nautch 
dances,  154-157 ;  "  Harischandra, " 
Tamil  drama,  157-159 ;  visits  Achmet 
Arabi,  162-168;  watches  street  con- 
jurer,  169 ;  at  Madras  temple  cere- 
monials, 174-176 ;  talks  with  stu- 
dents, 176-179 ;  opposes  traditional 
belief  about  Juggenauth,  180, 181 ;  at 
Tripelcane  temple,  181-183 ;  pilgrim- 
age to  St.  Thome,  183-187 ;  lectures 
on  "Eeligion  of  Humanity,"  191;  vis- 
ited by  Jain  teacher,  192, 193 ;  with 
Mme.  Blavatsky  at  Adyar,  196-203 ; 
witnesses  "  pausala  "  administered, 
204,  205;  investigates  Theosophic 
miracles,  205-213 ;  attends  Royal 
Asiatic  Society  banquet  in  Calcutta, 
215 ;  travels  with  Mozoomdar,  215 ; 
at  Positivist  school,  218-220;  intro- 
duces Mozoomdar  to  Tyndall,  221- 
223 ;  at  Calcutta  Exposition,  223-225; 
print-shop,  225;  theatres,  226-234; 
circus,  234;  visits  shrine  of  Kali, 


INDEX 


413 


236-237,  241,  242 ;  conversation  with 
yogi,  238,  239 ;  dines  with  Indian 
prince,  244-246 ;  seeing  Bengal,  248, 
249  j  holds  religious  conference,  249, 
250;  visits  Dr.  Mitra,  250-252; 
Ameer  AH,  252-254 ;  sees  conjurer's 
marvellous  dolls,  265,  256 ;  Journeys 
to  Buddha-Gaya,  257-262;  at  Be- 
nares, 266-268 ;  his  "  Chats  with  a 
Chimpanzee  "  begun,  268  ;  excursion 
to  "  Deer  Park,"  268 ;  opinion  of  the 
narrative  of  Jesus  and  the  woman 
of  Samaria,  273 ;  at  Delhi,  277-281 ; 
at  Purana  Keela,  282-284 ;  sees  the 
Taj,  284,  285 ;  adventure  at  Agra,  289 ; 
at  Allahabad,  302-309 ;  in  Bombay, 
317-332;  sails  for  home,  343;  his 
search  for  Jesus,  351-381. 

Cook,  Captain,  authentic  account  of 
his  death,  55. 

Coulomb,  Mme.,  exposes  Theosophic 
marvels,  211-213. 

Crawford,  F.  Marion,  his  "  Mr.  Isaacs  " 
and  Theosophy,  195. 

Crocodile,  a  fair  symbol  of  Aurung- 
zeb,  289. 

Daharwanga,  strange  sights  at,  307. 

Damon,  Frank,  55. 

Damon,  Rev.  Dr.,  55. 

Darmesteter,  James,  326. 

Darwin,  Charles,  on  tropical  tribes,  58, 
65 ;  C.  lectures  on,  74,  91,94 ;  disliked 
by  Australians,  104. 

Davids,  T.  W.  Rhys,  LL.  D.,  128,  250. 

Day,  Lai  Behari,  his  "  Folk-Tales  of 
Bengal, "  242. 

"  Deer  Park,"  268,  269. 

Delhi,  277-281. 

Demons  and  demonology,  C.'s  book 
on,  144,  246, 247 ;  in  Ceylon,  147, 151, 
152 ;  in  India,  242. 

De  Silva,  W.  A.,  co-editor  of  "Ceylon 
National  Review, "  264. 

Devil-dance,  144-150. 

"Dew-drop,  The  Circumnavigation  of 
a, "  9. 

Dickinson  College,  extract  from  ad- 
dress at,  349. 

Dolls,  marvellous,  255, 266. 

Draupadi,  and  her  five  husbands,  282, 
283;  and  St  Agnes,  292;  and  the 
Samaritan  woman,  369,  note. 

Dualism,  the  central  principle  of  Zo- 
roaster, 326. 

Earthward  Pilgrimage,  The,  4,  6. 
Eglinton,  a  medium,  206-209. 
Elephanta,  318,  322. 
Emancipation,  chief  end  of  Civil  War, 

25. 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo, "  The  Sphinx" 

quoted,  355. 
England,  influence  of,  on  India,  318, 

319,  339. 

Esmond,  James,  79. 
Essen,  town  of,  348-350. 


Fitzhugh,  William,  31. 

Fokke,  Capt.  Bernard,  legend  of,  344. 

Folk-lore  the  djSbris  of  Asiatic  usage 

and  superstition,  301. 
Fox,  W.  J.,  minister  of  South  Place 

Chapel,  332. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  360. 
Fraser,  Mrs.,  of  Melbourne,  344. 
Freethinkers,  International  Congress 

of,  387. 
Froude,  James  Anthony,  292,  293. 

Gaietfi-Montparnasse,  a  Sunday  even- 
ing revue  at,  390, 391. 

Gandhi,  Virchand,  192, 193. 

Ganges,  immersions  in  the,  266. 

Garnett,  Dr.  Richard,  his  "  Edward 
Gibbon  Wakefleld,"  68. 

Gaya,  temple  at,  257-263;  discovery 
at,  261. 

Ghosh,  Jogendra  Chandra,  adopts 
Positivism,  219. 

Giosafat,  St.,  beautiful  statue  of,  299. 

"  Golden  Pillar,"  278. 

Gordon,  Charles  George  ("Chinese 
Gordon"),  345-348. 

Goreh,  Nelacantah,  321, 322,  331. 

Gospel  of  the  Infancy,  Arabic,  1. 

Grenfell,  Dr.  Bernard,  382. 

Guizot,  F.  P.  G.,  quoted,  395. 

Happiness,  religion  promotes,  13 ;  and 
self-sacrifice,  192. 

Hargraves,  Edward,  discovers  gold  in 
Australia,  78, 79. 

Hartmann,  Dr.,  197,  202;  "pansala" 
administered  to,  204, 205. 

Hawaii,  strict  Sunday  laws  in,  64,  55; 
half-caste  population,  55 ;  overthrow 
of  paganism  in,  66,  67  ;  missionary 
efforts  futile,  57, 58. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  In  Rome,  397- 
399. 

Heber,  Bishop  Reginald,  misconcep- 
tions of,  119, 136, 137. 

Higinbotham,  Judge,  75,  89. 

Hindu,  exorcising  devils,  144, 151 ;  de- 
mons, 149,  150;  chief  deity,  150; 
temple  dancers,  155-157,  175,  176; 
music,  158, 159;  deities,  174, 175, 178- 
182;  students,  176-179;  kills  St. 
Thomas,  185;  tale  of  Savatri,  188, 
189;  Theosophists,  197-199;  reli- 
gions, 218-221;  theatres,  225-234; 
miracle  play,  226-228 ;  Kali  wor- 
ship, 235-237,  241-244 ;  yogis,  238-240 ; 
women,  seclusion  of,  243 ;  fanaticism 
repulsive  to  educated,  245;  idols 
only  symbols,  245,  246;  conjurers, 
255,  256 ;  politeness  and  tact  of,  294, 
295 ;  ill-treated  by  some  of  the  Eng- 
lish, 338. 

Hoadly,  George,  21 ;  political  career, 
38. 

Hobart,  situation,  81 ;  a  Sunday  in,  81. 

Hunt,  Dr.  Arthur,  382. 

Hunter,  Sir  William,  180,  211,  215, 223, 


414 


INDEX 


259  ;  With   C.  at   Kalighat,  235-244  ; 
with  C.  at  Bengal,  248 ;  on  mission- 
aries, 320;  quoted  on  some  develop- 
ments of  Vishnuism,  337. 
Huxley,  T.  H.,  338. 

Ilbert,  Hon.  Mr.,  228. 

Ingersoll,  Robert  G.,  persuasive  pow- 
er of,  19, 20 ;  freedom  of  mind,  20 ;  his 
iconoclasm  incidental,  21 ;  purity  of 
mind,  22;  attacked  by  Rev.  Sam. 
Jones,  22 ;  family  life,  23 ;  compelled 
to  resign  nomination  as  minister  to 
Germany,  24. 

Inventor,  American,  anecdote  of  an, 
406,  407. 

Jacob's  well,  369, 370. 

Jain  religion,  192, 193;  temple  in  Bom- 
bay, 341. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  religious  attitude 
of,  360. 

Jeffray,  Robert  J.,  8. 

Jehan,  Shah,  285. 

Jehanara,  Princess,  290. 

Jenckes,  William,  19. 

Jesus,  quest  of,  351-381 ;  why  put  to 
death,  365;  a  gentleman,  and  rich, 
366 ;  sayings  of,  370-375 ;  his  baptism, 
376, 377 ;  his  birth,  378 ;  resurrection, 
379 ;  sayings  ascribed  to,  382. 

Jingo,  defence  of  a,  16. 

Job,  book  of,  301. 

Jones,  Rev.  Sam.,  22. 

Judas,  identified  with  doubting  Thom- 
as, 189, 190. 

Juggenauth,  179-181,  257,  265 ;  car  of, 
312. 

Jumna,  the  river,  285, 287. 

Jumna  Mosque,  the,  290. 

Kali,  shrine  of,  235-237 ;  image  of,  241 ; 
vows  and  sacrifices  to,  242 ;  not  ideal 
deity,  244 ;  invisible,  246, 247. 

Kalpa-tree,  in  Oriental  lore,  171, 172. 

Khrusroo,  the  poet,  tomb  of,  280. 

King,  Charles  William,  anecdote  of, 
324. 

Krishna,  and  Ar  juna,  282  ;  legend  of 
his  dancing  with  milkmaids,  285, 288, 
291;  answers  Draupadi's  prayer, 
292;  similarity  between  legends  of 
his  birth  and  Christ's,  295, 296 ;  popu- 
lar coloured  prints  of  his  story,  297, 
298. 

Krupp  Gun  Works,  at  Essen,  349. 

Laing,  Samuel,  "A  Modern  Zoroas- 
trian"  quoted,  340, 341. 

Lakshmi,  goddess  of  prosperity,  300. 

Lalor,  Hon.  Peter,  speaker  of  Victo- 
rian Parliament,  79. 

Lazarus,  Bible  story  of,  a  drama,  358, 
359. 

Lewis,  Colonel  Fielding,  31. 

Lilith,  300. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  27. 


Mcllvaine,  Bishop,  139-141. 

Madonna,  the  Everyday,  399 ;  Jesus 
and,  401. 

Madras,  dawn  in,  174;  temple  dan- 
cers, 175,  176 ;  university  students, 
176-179;  temple  at  Tripelcane,  181- 
183 ;  Princess  Savatri  of,  legend 
about,  188, 189. 

Magdalene,  legend  of  the,  273. 

Manning,  Archbishop,  on  progress, 
385,  386. 

Manning,  Mrs.,  her  "Ancient  and 
Mediaeval  India,"  261 ;  her  opinion 
of  "  The  Toy  Cart,"  272. 

Manwaysh,  annual  festival,  302-306. 

Maoris,  deputation  of,  69. 

Marmoutier,  convent  of,  400. 

Maryland,  origin  of  name,  29. 

Melbourne,  "  Cup  Day,"  70,  71 ;  Joss 
House,  71;  mayor's  banquet,  73; 
Bishop  of,  75,  76. 

Michel,  Louise,  394. 

Miller,  Colonel,  of  Bombay,  317. 

Minar  Pillar,  279,  280. 

Missionaries,  2, 214, 319;  in  Hawaii,  56- 
59 ;  misconceptions  of,  119,  120, 136, 
137;  in  Ceylon,  126;  Moslem,  123, 
124 ;  inconsistency  of,  138,  142 ;  an- 
ecdotes Of,  305,  306. 

Mitra,  Dr.  Rajendralala,  Indian  schol- 
ar, 250-252, 259 ;  extract  from  letter 
to  C.,  263, 265. 

Monkeys,  sporting  in  the  forest,  317. 

Monkey  Temple  at  Benares,  267,268. 

Monod,  Henri,  405. 

Moorhouse,  Bishop,  martyr  to  liber- 
alism, 75,  76,  89,  90,  104. 

Mormons,  persecutions  of,  40 ;  polyg- 
amy, 41, 42;  elder's  sermon,  43,  44; 
"  Godbeites,"  44, 45. 

Moslem,  sermon  by  a,  123, 124;  make- 
believe,  137,  138 ;  exile  in  Ceylon, 
162-168 ;  religion  misunderstood,  166 ; 
orthodox  beliefs,  250;  scholar,  All, 
252-254. 

Mozoomdar,  Protap  Chunder,  Brahmo 
minister,  215 ;  his  religion,  221;  and 
Tyndall,  221,  222. 

Miiller,  George,  of  Bristol,  213,  214. 

Muller,  Professor  Max,  180 ;  and 
Nelacantah  Goreh,  321, 322 ;  quoted, 
384. 

"  Mysteries,"  Buddhist  and  Christian, 
274. 

"  Necklace  of  Stories,  A,"  26, 27. 
Newman,  Prof.  F.  W.,  333 ;  anecdote 

of,  309, 310. 

Newman,  John  Henry,  92. 
Nizam-ooden,  supposed   founder  of 

the  order  of  Thugs,  280. 
Normanby,  Marquis  of,  73. 
Norton,  Andrews,  23. 

Olcott,  Colonel,  Theosophist,  patron 
of  Buddhists,  120,  130;  and  Hindus. 
178 ;  name  part  of  "  Djual  Khoot," 


INDEX 


415 


201, 202 ;  evades  questions,  210 ;  and 

u  Koothoomi,"  210, 211. 
Orient,  books  of,  2;    religions  of,  7; 

folk-lore,  170, 171 ;  dawn  in  the,  174. 
Ortnuzd,  327. 
Owen,  Prof.  Richard,  94. 
Owl,  bird  of  ill  omen,  300. 

Pandit,  Shankuran,  323. 

Parst  theatres.  225,  230-234. 

Parsts,  324-326,  330. 

Patriotism,  a  cult,  17 ;  evolution  of,  17, 
18. 

Paul,  St.,  and  Christianity,  361,  362. 

Penrose,  Elder,  sermon  by,  43. 

Peter,  St.,  Gospel  of,  403. 

Peterson,  Professor,  of  Elphinstone 
University,  318, 322. 

Pithora,  Rajah,  legend  of,  279, 280. 

Pokahuntas,  30. 

Polygamy  among  Christian  converts 
in  India,  288. 

Positivism,  218,  219. 

Prester  John,  28. 

"  Prince  Jivaka"  quoted,  269. 

Prodigal  Son,  parable  of  the,  262  note. 

Purana  Keela,  ancient  fortified  vil- 
lage, 282-284. 

Ramabai,  Pundita,  331. 

Ramanathan,  Hon.  P.,  solicitor-gen- 
eral of  Ceylon,  130, 131, 133;  beauti- 
ful bungalow  of,  143;  his  new  religion, 
159 ;  lectures  at  Harvard,  160.  . 

Rammobun  Roy,  332, 361. 

Rationalists,  support  C.,  3 ;  press  asso- 
ciation of  London,  4;  reservations 
of,  190. 

Religion,  rationalistic,  4, 190 ;  Oriental, 
7 ;  limitations  of,  12, 13 ;  and  happi- 
ness, 13;  Mormon,  40-45;  conserva- 
tism in  Australia,  91-94;  Buddhist, 
117, 118, 120, 121, 126, 131-136, 204, 205  ; 
Hindu,  150, 155-157,  174,  175,  176, 178- 
182 ;  of  Ramanathan,  159 ;  of  human- 
ity, 191;  of  pain  and  sacrifice,  191, 192 ; 
Jain,  192;  Theosophy,  195-203; 
Brahmo  Somaj,  218;  Sandharan 
Brahmos,  218;  Brahmanism,  219- 
221;  supernatural  in  Oriental  reli- 
gion, 229;  Bhakti,  335. 

Renan,  Ernest,  criticised  for  making 
Jesus  a  Frenchman,  335. 

Ripon,  Marquis  of,  Viceroy  of  India, 
215. 

Rivers,  General  Pitt,  331. 

Robertson,  John  M.,  364  note ;  "  Christ 
and  Krishna"  quoted,  336. 

Robinson,  Moncure,  20. 

Rostand,  Edmond,  his  play,  "  La 
Samaritaine,"  357. 

Rush,  Dr.  Benjamin,  360. 

Sacrifice,  the  doctrine  of,  311, 395-397. 

St  Agnes,  legend  of,  292. 

St  Augustine,  364. 

St  Giosafat,  beautiful  statue  of,  299. 


St  Paul  and  Christianity,  361, 362. 

St  Peter,  Gospel  of,  403. 

St  Thomas,  church  and  relics  of,  at  St 
Thome,  183-187;  indentified  originally 
with  Judas,  189, 190. 

Saleen,  Sheik,  288. 

Salpgtriere,  the,  religious  epileptics 
in,  392,  393. 

Salt,  the  covenant  of,  301. 

Sand,  George,  "Pauline"  quoted, 
172, 173 ;  quoted,  266 ;  "  Les  Maltres 
Sonneurs,"  291. 

Sapara,  Buddha's  traditional  birth- 
place, 120. 

Satan  in  Christian  theology,  326. 

Savage,  Minot  J.,  404. 

Savatri,  Princess,  legend  of,  188, 189. 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  264, 265. 

Segura,  Father,  29. 

Sen,  Keshub  Chunder,  332-334 ;  death 
of,  215-217;  asceticism  of,  218;  suc- 
cessor mentioned,  221. 

Sen,  Norendronath,  Theosophist,  197, 
203,  204. 

Siddhartha,  see  Buddha. 

Sinnett,  Alfred  Percy,  Theosophist, 
195 ;  his  "  Esoteric  Buddhism,"  196 ; 
and  Mine.  Blavatsky,  199;  and  im- 
postures, 208,  209. 

Siva,  chief  god  of  Benares,  267. 

Smith,  Goldwin,  395. 

Smith,  Professor  John,  196, 200. 

Solomon,  the  "  Judgment "  of,  trace- 
able to  an  Indian  source,  293. 

Spiritualism,  in  Howells's  "The  Undis- 
covered Country,"  11 ;  in  Australia, 
87,  96. 

Strong,  Rev.  Charles,  martyr  to  liber- 
alism, 75,  76,  89,  90, 104. 

Subhuti,  Waskaduwe,  Buddhist 
priest,  116, 117, 122, 126, 136. 

Supernaturalism,  C.'s  repudiation  of, 
2  3 

Swamy,  Ananda  Cumara,  co-editor  of 
"Ceylon  National  Review,"  254. 

Swamy,  Sir  Muter  Kumara,  his  bun- 
galow, 153 ;  his  translation  of  "  Hari- 
schandra,"  157-159;  his  marriage, 
254. 

Swinburne,  A.  C.,  "  Mater  Triumpba- 
lis  "  quoted,  403. 

Sydney,  religious  conservatism  in,  91- 
94;  Museum,  94 ;  Zoological  Gardens, 
95 ;  Botany  Bay,  95. 

Taj  Mahal,  the,  284, 285. 

Tajore,  Sir  Jotendra  Mohun,  256. 

Tammany,  origin  of  the  name,  28, 29. 

Tasmania,  penal  settlements,  81,  86; 
fauna  and  flora,  84, 85 ;  extinction  of 
natives,  86,  87. 

Taylor,  Sir  Henry,  quoted,  190. 

Temple,  Dr.  Frederick,  140, 141. 

Theosophy,  Mme.  Blavatsky  and,  195 ; 
centre  of,  196-203 ;  origin  of  Mahat- 
mas,  201,  202 ;  miracles  of,  203 ;  im- 
postures of,  205-213. 


416 


INDEX 


Thoreau,  Henry  D.,  106. 

Towers  of  Silence,  the,  324,  325. 

"  Toy-Cart,   The,"    play   of   ancient 

Hindu  theatre,  271-273. 
Turner,  Henry  G.,  8,  72,  74. 
Tyndall,  John,  221-223. 

"  Undiscovered  Country,  The,"  10. 

Vaisali,  site  undetermined,  268,  269. 

Vallabha-Swami,  337. 

Varuna,  215. 

Velasco,  Don  Louis  de,  Indian  prince, 
29. 

Victoria,  Chinese  of,  71 ;  religious  sta- 
tistics, 72 ;  abandoned  town  in,  80. 

Vishnu,  257. 

Vishnuism   revived    toy    Chaitanya, 

336. 

Voltaire,  105, 106. 

Walkishwur  Tank,  the,  323. 
Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  anecdote  of, 

355. 

Washington,  John  Augustine,  33. 
Washington,  Mary,  letter  to  her  son, 

33. 


Weedon,  General  George,  revels  at 
the  "  Sentry  Box,"  31-33. 

Well  of  Knowledge,  267. 

Wesley,  John,  105-107. 

West,  Judge,  of  Bombay,  323, 328. 

Westminster  Creed,  107. 

"  Widow's  Ghat,"  266. 

Wilson,  Prof.  H.  H.,  335,  336;  transla- 
tion from  the  Agni  Purana  quoted, 
312,  313. 

Windeyer,  Justice,  93,  96, 196. 

Wisdom,  the  secret  of,  10, 11. 

Witchcraft,  a  mulatto  girl's  delusion, 
37. 

Woman  in  Zoroastrianism,  327. 

Yogi,  Indian  ascetic,  238-240. 
Yosada,  foster-mother  of  Krishna,  296, 

297. 
Young,  John  W.,  defends  polygamy, 

41, 42. 
Yudhishthira,  Eajah,  legend  of,  283. 

Zanzibar,  native  of,  343. 
Zenanas,  331. 

Zoroaster,  essential  principle  of,  326, 
327 ;  religion  of,  the  true  one,  339. 


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